


(broad)casting your limelight

by sweetestsight



Series: Vloggers [1]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Youtuber AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:35:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 60,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23121859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetestsight/pseuds/sweetestsight
Summary: Ever since the start of their ongoing YouTube feud, Freddie Mercury and Brian May have never quite seen eye-to-eye. Not even a budding romance between their respective roommates can change that.Attending a con together? Now, that just might do it.Or: Brian records ASMR, Freddie does makeup, John is a living meme, Roger is addicted to Xbox, and YouTube is secretly a dating site.
Relationships: Brian May/Freddie Mercury, John Deacon/Roger Taylor
Series: Vloggers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1736374
Comments: 385
Kudos: 223





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I used to post little vlog au chat-type things on tumblr all the time, but I haven’t had a clear-cut concept for a youtuber au until quite recently! So here it is finally, about two years later. I hope you all enjoy! 
> 
> A special thank you to iamnotbrianmay and countrypride for editing and giving me feedback on the first chapter of this way back in the day! Don’t know if I would still be doing this if it wasn’t for all of you. 
> 
> Onward!

It had started with a comment.

Brian had been reading through the responses to one of his videos when he’d come across the simplest little statement from a user he’d never heard from before or since. It contained nothing but a name and a hyperlink.

_Queen Mercury._

He’d frowned and clicked on it, and it had taken him to a timestamped recording of a livestream from some sort of beauty vlogger.

The first thing Brian had noticed was that he was beautiful—not just beauty vlogger beautiful, but genuinely, naturally gorgeous. Between his glossy hair, his dark, warm eyes and the smooth cadence of his voice, Brian practically felt his shoulders relax just looking at him.

The second thing he noticed was his words themselves.

“Now, I’m not one to talk shit about anyone,” the man said, delicately brushing highlighter across his cheekbones. “Oh—sorry, this is Tourmaline by Anastasia. I’ll put Moonstone on the other cheek so that you can see the difference, alright? Anyway, I’m not one to spread gossip. I just have to say I’m worried about a certain roommate of mine. I’m starting to think being a YouTube gamer is in fact a cursed profession,” he added loftily, before turning his head delicately in front of the camera. His cheekbone lit up in dazzling, delicate glitter. “See how lovely that shade is, my darlings? I think the pink is just so fun.”

He dipped the feathery edges of his brush into the powder once more, showing it to the camera. He looked into the lens and raised his eyebrows as he did it, smiling as if it was all some sort of elaborate joke.

“As I was saying,” he continued, leaning away and brushing it along his other cheek. “Obviously it’s a good thing to leave your comfort zone, especially when your comfort zone is child-star memelord. I just think he’s falling in with a real—a real fucking group of jackasses, is all. I struggle to name a single YouTube gamer who isn’t on a slippery slope.”

He paused as comments flitted rapidly across the screen, squinting as he tried to keep up.

“Oh, don’t mention Roger Taylor on this channel,” he laughed. “He hasn’t proved himself to be a tool quite yet, I’ll say that.” He paused to shift again, his cheeks glittering prettily before he grinned. “But there’s still time, Blondie, so watch yourself!” he announced loudly as if to an audience.

Brian’s blood simmered.

Because the thing is, Roger may be an irritating piece of work on the best days. He’s loud, he’s temperamental, he’s a less than perfect roommate for a number of reasons and he gives Brian countless reasons to complain—but he’s _Brian’s_ less-than-perfect roommate, and random strangers on the internet don’t get to make fun of him for no reason.

Or mock him. Or…whatever.

How exactly this led Brian to binging every single video on Freddie’s channel, he wasn’t sure. All he knows is how it played into what happened next.

He was overdue to post a video that week. He was still in the early days then, still trying to figure out what exactly it was about his voice that people found so soothing. Or his hands, or the way they moved, or the sounds that the mic he’d originally bought for studio recording picked up. So he mostly just guessed, following his instincts and the suggestions people left in the comments.

That week he was folding laundry.

He kept his voice purposefully low and soothing, falling into the easy cadence he’d long-since adopted for these things as he spoke and making sure the cotton of the towels brushed against itself at every fold, whisper-soft and calming.

“Welcome back,” he’d murmured into the mic, his voice barely above a whisper. “I hope you’re all doing well, and that you’ve been doing something much more entertaining with your weekend than I have. It’s been nothing but chores around here for us, I’m afraid,” he added, smiling at the camera.

“First off, I’d like to apologize for the state of my hair. I’m trying to grow it out right now but it’s a little…I don’t know. The afro is at large, suffice to say.” He paused for a moment to rub the fabric of a pillowcase against itself in front of the mic, hoping the rasping sound was coming through loud and clear. “Second off, I do feel the need to defend a certain roommate of mine, who has been getting a little…attacked for seemingly nothing. He’s a piece of work, certainly, but not nearly so much as a certain beauty vlogger I might be better off not mentioning by name.”

Three hours later he gets a comment from Queen Mercury: _I can see why you and Roger are friends. You seem like quite the piece of work yourself, darling._

And, really, _that’s_ how it begins.

It probably shouldn’t be taking over his life the way it is, but that’s just the state of things.

A morning in the library had turned into a day, and by the time he gets home he’s exhausted. Every time he closes his eyes the ghosts of words scroll across his eyelids, probably burned there for good, and all he wants to do is take a nap before picking it up again in the evening. He’s just flopping down on the sofa when his phone pings with the notification that a one Queen Mercury has posted a new video. Already rolling his eyes in annoyance, Brian shoves one earbud into his ear and opens YouTube, angrily tapping play.

The familiar red rose logo flashes across the screen before being replaced by the image of Freddie himself, as annoyingly beautiful as ever as he waves playfully from behind his vanity. “Welcome back, darlings,” he says sweetly. “I’m Freddie Mercury, as you know. Or maybe you don’t and you’re new here, in which case welcome. It’s so nice to see new faces.”

Brian rolls his eyes. “You can’t see them,” he mutters to the phone, a little unnecessarily.

“Today I’m just going over a look a few of you have asked about. I was at John’s cousin’s wedding over the weekend—John’s my roommate, in case you didn’t know. His YouTube is Big Deaky, so please go check him out if you like vine-flavored shenanigans. Anyway, this look is really simple. It’s light on the contouring and all of that, and it really lets your eyes pop with nice light lip color.”

Brian purses his lips, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Freddie always manages to find some way to work in an asshole-ish comment. It’s just a matter of time.

Freddie pulls out a plastic-handled makeup brush, holding it up in front of his open palm until it comes into focus. “Now, the kicker today is that I’m using only brushes that I’ve found at TK Maxx. This is proof that you don’t need expensive materials to look like a million pounds, alright? Living proof right here.”

Brian bites his lip. It’s coming. He knows it’s coming.

Freddie smirks. “I was actually inspired to buy this brush by a dear colleague of mine, who used one very similar to it to brush a microphone for two and a half hours the other day. Which seems a lot easier than my job here, really, but I think we can all agree that ASMRtists are actually lacking pretty severely in the artistic sense. Fortunately for the less-than-talented, there’s a pretty big market for…I don’t know. Whatever it is that they do.”

There it is.

He rolls his eyes, unplugging his earbuds and tossing his phone across the couch. The exhaustion from the day is building and this is resting right on top of it, a heavy weight in the back of his brain. He throws his elbow over his face, briefly considering just crawling into bed and going to sleep.

No. He can’t. He has work to do.

Probably.

The rattle of the key in the lock startles him from his thoughts, the door banging open a second later as Roger makes his presence known. His bag falls directly on top of Brian’s, a few papers spilling out from the top and spreading across the floor. A moment later the man himself is falling against the sofa near Brian’s head, jostling him against the cushions.

“Fucking Tuesdays,” Roger mutters.

Brian nods in commiseration.

“You good?”

He nods again.

“You sure? I have some chocolate in my bag if you want any.”

“No, I’m okay.”

Roger is silent for a beat. “Did Freddie post yet?”

He hesitates before nodding this time.

“When?”

“About five minutes ago.”

“Did you watch it?”

He hesitates even longer before nodding.

“Brian,” Roger sighs, turning toward him and jostling him further.

Brian frowns. He sits up finally, not making eye contact. “I can do what I want,” he mutters.

“This can’t possibly be healthy,” Roger says, but when Brian only continues to glare at the coffee table he huffs. “Fine. Are you recording today?”

“I recorded two days ago.”

“Then get off me. I have a stream in a few.”

Brian frowns at him.

Roger huffs again, rolling his eyes. “I’m not trying to get rid of you, I just know how much you hate the Skyrim theme at this point.”

“You noticed?”

“Brian, _I_ hate the Skyrim theme and I’m the one playing the thing. It’s not that much of a stretch.”

Brian sighs heavily, but he picks up his phone and leaves for the kitchen. He could use a cup of tea, and he should probably be finishing his paper anyway.

He shuffles into the kitchen as he hears Roger tromp upstairs to get set up. As his cup is brewing he grabs his bookbag and his earbuds. It’s no doubt going to be another long day of trying to block out the damned theme music and combat sounds. He shudders to think of what their poor neighbors must be going through.

By the time he’s upstairs and properly settled in his room, his door cracked open just enough that Roger’s voice can provide some white noise to study to, the typical sounds of him wrestling with his mic are already becoming audible through the wall. He sighs, settling at his desk and opening his textbook. Studying is usually a bit of a chore, but at this point losing himself in infrared astronomy will be more of a blessing.

There’s a beep from next door as Roger begins recording, and he settles deeper into his desk chair as he begins writing, only half-listening to what’s happening next door.

“Welcome back to Skyrim,” Roger is saying, the Elder Scrolls theme blaring deafeningly loudly for a split second. Brian only recognizes it from all the times he’s heard it filtering through their shared wall at two in the morning, and he winces at the war flashbacks. “This is, uh. Episode five of this, now? And in case you’ve forgotten, I’m pretty much giving up on the plot of this game or whatever. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing. I’ve devoted all my resources to my life at home.”

Brian snorts. He flicks his notebook open to his key terms list before beginning a quick hunt through his textbook’s glossary.

“This is my hunk jock husband Calder,” Roger is saying. “He’s a real Chad. Actually I married him because—shit. I married him because he kind of looks like John Deacon.”

Brian frowns, stilling.

“Well, not really. But he proposed to _me,_ and the way he asked was the most shy nerd crap I’ve ever heard in my life, that…yeah, I was instantly moved. So now he’s a stay-at-home dad who runs a shop from our house and takes care of our dogs, and I’m just kind of collecting cheese wheels for him.” He’s silent for a beat. “Deaky, if you’re watching this…I’ll provide you all the cheese wheels in the world, baby doll. All you have to do is ask.”

Brian stands quickly, moving to the door and into the hallway.

There’s a long pause, punctuated only by the clicking of buttons, and then Roger’s phone pings. He’s silent for a beat before snorting. “He just Skype-messaged me. He wants a divorce.”

Brian pushes his door open, frowning. “Since when are you friends with Freddie Mercury’s roommate, of all people?” he snaps.

Roger looks at him with wide eyes, shielding his mic from his mouth. “Live stream,” he stage whispers.

“Yeah, I know, I—”

Roger’s eyes go even wider and he shakes his head.

Brian nearly kicks himself. Of course John is watching this stream—Roger had just confirmed that—and if he’s watching it there’s a good chance Freddie is watching it, too. The worst thing he could do is give him more ammo.

He winces at Roger in apology before quickly retreating back to his own room. He digs his earbuds out of his bag, jamming them into his ears and turning on Purple Haze at nearly deafening volumes until he can’t hear a single word of what Roger is saying. He flops down on his bed, staring at the ceiling, and briefly wonders how this became his life.

How exactly it is that Roger befriended John Deacon of all people is a mystery—not in the sense that Brian is surprised that Roger found someone with common interests or that he managed to reach out to John in the first place, but in the sense that John is simply a mystery in and of himself.

Brian doesn’t know much about John, and he is fairly certain that most people don’t.

All he can be sure of is that at one point in around 2014 John went viral over about six or seven vines. The only one Brian really remembers had featured a juul, a pint of beer, and a much younger Freddie Mercury singing an operatic version of the Olympics theme song while doing John’s makeup in a style that Brian can only describe as being so British that he’d immediately had the urge to expatriate. Somehow the multiple layers of nude lipstick had only increased John’s mystique.

How Roger had fallen in with him—or, honestly, how Freddie and John had become friends in the first place—is as much a mystery as anything. Truth be told, none of them seem like they should run in the same crowds. Freddie is practically an internet darling, Roger is…Roger, and John became a chaotic vine poster child when he was about thirteen years old. Regardless, here they are.

He ruminates on it while he’s in class, flicking through old vines and twitter threads as if that will lend him any clarity on the situation. It’s not like he really needs to pay attention, anyway. He’s blessedly ahead, something he can only be grateful for as he holds his breath through another vine so as not to laugh out loud.

“I love that one,” a girl in the row behind him mutters as on his laptop screen a fourteen-year-old John flings a cheese toasty at the ceiling, effectively glueing it there with the power of sticky cheddar and mozzarella alone, while a heart-moving kazoo rendition of _Free Bird_ plays in the background.

Brian just raises his eyebrows, sending a small smile her way as the other students start shuffling papers and bags, preparing for the end of class.

There’s an atmosphere of bitter nihilism surrounding his peers today, most likely due to the papers they’ve all been slaving away over. Who in their right mind assigns a paper to a science student is beyond him, though apparently his professor fits the bill.

Hell, why anyone would want to _grade_ a hundred-odd papers is beyond him.

Nonetheless he drops his onto the stack with everyone else’s as he files out of the room, wary of having it graded and happy to finally see it go in equal measures. All he wants to do now is go home, make a hot cup of tea and zone out for a while.

By the time gets home, the flat blessedly empty, his thoughts of John and Roger have returned in spades. He makes his tea as he opens his laptop once more, planning to continue his YouTube binge.

Instead a notification about Freddie’s newest video pops up, John himself visible in the thumbnail, and Brian doesn’t hesitate before clicking it.

Freddie is as usual positioned in the foreground, the bright lights of his vanity making his eyes shine. John is visible in the background of the frame, blurry and out of focus, sitting on the couch behind Freddie’s vanity and seemingly minding his own business while he eats what looks to be some sort of egg muffin and scrolling through his phone.

“You’ll notice my lovely roommate in the background,” Freddie says, winking playfully at the camera. “Deaky, say hi.”

Deaky waves his sandwich vaguely in the camera’s direction, utterly wordless.

If Freddie is surprised he doesn’t say anything. He just keeps blending his contour elegantly with a beauty blender, sucking in his cheeks every now and then and unwittingly showing off the sharp lines of his cheek bones. “Deaky isn’t really in this video for any particular reason—not that we don’t want him here, obviously—oh, shit. Uh, this is the cream contour kit by e.l.f., by the way, and I’m being very gentle on the contrast because I want this look to be nice and light for spring. Anyway, as I was saying, Deaky is really only in the frame because he refused to move. Welcome to the vlog, Deaks.”

Deaky grunts vaguely, muttering something the mic doesn’t pick up.

“Yeah, yeah,” Freddie mutters under his breath, blending in his contour with practiced movements. “You know, there’s been a little chatter recently about this roommate of mine, dear subscribers. There’s been a rumour about him and a certain Roger Taylor going round, in fact.”

In the background, John drops his sandwich.

Freddie seems to see it in his reflection, because he smiles a little at the camera as John swears and rushes to recover his snack. “Deaky,” Freddie calls. “Would that be true?”

“Fuck off, Fred,” John calls back flatly. “What do you want, anyway?”

Freddie turns back to the camera, continuing to blend his contour. “Well, what I _want_ is to know if you would inquire as to whether his lovely best friend is permanently that bitchy, or if the stick up his ass is removable.”

Brian huffs. It’s a throwaway comment, really, but with the weight of his already shitty week pressing down on him it hits a little closer to home than he’d like. He shifts uncomfortably against the prickle of panic as the constant feeling of anxiety and sadness swells in the back of his head.

He’s about to just turn the whole thing off when the camera jump cuts, signifying something has been edited out. He frowns. John is now sitting criss-cross, sandwich back in hand as he continues to eat, and Freddie looks slightly uncomfortable.

“I’m only teasing, you know,” Freddie says, his usual smile barely present in the corners of his mouth. He looks surprisingly earnest; he almost seems sweet, and Brian feels tears prick the back of his eyes.

And then he has to go and ruin it.

He swipes highlighter across his cheeks with a debonair flick of his wrist. “What Brian May does or does not shove up his ass is nobody’s business but his own,” he says dryly.

Brian huffs, slamming his laptop closed.

He hadn’t started out posting ASMR.

His first clumsy steps into YouTube hadn’t fallen into a specific category. In all truthfulness, he hadn’t really even known that that was how YouTube _worked._ He’d been fifteen and using it mainly for woodshop tutorials as his and his father’s build-a-guitar pet project had blossomed into a fully grown obsession, and between video binges and research kicks he’d started recording a few of his own videos on the side: study tips, a few woodshop tutorials of his own, a handful of videos of himself singing.

But then people had started leaving comments about his voice and his hands and how relaxing something about his cadence was. People with no interest whatsoever in science began watching his murmured rants on astronomy in droves. At first he’d been mildly offended at all the comments about how it had put them right to sleep or relaxed them to the point of blissful, mindless contentment.

And then he had done his research, and he’d understood.

Not _fully,_ anyway. He still doesn’t really get what exactly a tingle is, and he isn’t quite sure he ever will. But he knows how to give them to people, and that’s really all he’s here for.

Even so, he barely even classifies what he does as ASMR at all. It’s usually just him murmuring into a high-def microphone and doing little fiddly tasks to keep his hands occupied, and yet somehow it works for people anyway. It’s just as well. He doesn’t think he could quite pull off the more intense stuff some of his colleagues get away with.

It only takes him ten minutes to gather his thoughts. He does it as he adjusts his mics and closes the curtains, flicking on lamps and adjusting fairy lights until the room is soothingly warm and gold. He settles before his camera, the wall behind him decorated with a tapestry of what he thinks is the ceiling of Grand Central Station that Tim had brought back from his last trip stateside, the stars subtle but charmingly art deco. He takes a deep breath and then lets it out, stretching his hands slowly.

And then he starts recording.

Freddie doesn’t post in response. Freddie doesn’t post for another week.

“Do you know what’s going on?” he asks Roger.

He’s sprawled across the couch, his textbook laid across the top of his chest. Roger, for his part, is being a real trooper. He hasn’t complained about Brian’s legs resting across his lap even once.

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” Roger replies, changing the channel on the telly.

“Freddie, I mean.”

“Freddie who?”

“Freddie Mercury,” Brian snaps. “Who else would I be talking about?”

“You’re right,” Roger mutters. “You sure do talk about him an awful lot, for someone who hates his guts.”

Brian frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Roger huffs. “Fuck, Brian. I don’t know. Why are you even asking me?”

“You’re friends with John, aren’t you?” Brian asks. “Has he said anything?”

“I’m not going to ask him, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“So he hasn’t.”

Roger shrugs, exasperated. “I don’t know! We don’t exactly spend our time talking about you and Freddie, now do we?”

“Then what do you talk about?”

“Seriously?” Roger says. “The world doesn’t revolve around you two and your idiotic squabble, you know. We have plenty else to talk about. I’m sure you and Freddie would too, if you’d ever bother to listen to each other.”

“We do plenty of listening to each other,” Brian mutters.

“Yeah. I’m sure.” He digs out his phone, opening YouTube and scrolling through it quickly before all but tossing the device at Brian.

Brian struggles to catch it. “What is this?”

“Just watch it.”

It’s John’s channel. Brian doesn’t watch much of it, but he still recognizes the logo at the start of the video. He taps the screen to see the title.

_I make my sad roommate hot chocolate (for posterity)_

Oh.

The title card fades out, revealing a one John Deacon standing before a stove. Dark circles line the space below his eyes, his hair slightly tangled and frizzy. He’s wearing a simple green apron which concisely reads EAT SHIT.

A boppy tune Brian vaguely recognizes as the Mii theme music begins playing. “I hate making serious content,” John tells the camera flatly. “I really do. However, there is a reason.” The shot jumps as he turns to his right to address a second camera. “Unfortunately,” he says solemnly, before turning back to the first camera.

He pulls out a pot, placing it on the stove and lighting the burner. “I’m recording this not because I want it to get views,” he starts, and then the camera zooms in rapidly on an old piece of macaroni stuck to the stove which has now caught fire, unseen (or simply ignored) by John, a millisecond of Alicia Keys’ Girl On Fire blaring at ear-deafening volumes before fading back to the Wii music, “but rather because Freddie literally always asks me to make this for him because he doesn’t know how to do it himself. Now instead of waking me up at three in the morning because he’s sad about his dumb YouTube crush or whatever he can simply refer back to this video.”

He turns to the second camera solemnly. “Freddie, I’m doing this for you,” he says, before facing forward again. He dumps a bag of chocolate chips into the pan, somehow making the gesture appear flippant, before looking up quickly through his eyelashes. “Also for posterity,” he adds as an afterthought. “And for the legendary RT, who apparently doesn’t know how to cook. Instead he makes his poor husband prepare cheese toast for him all day. And he wonders why I want a divorce.”

Roger grabs the phone out of Brian’s grip, turning it off quickly. “That’s it,” he rushes to say. “That’s all I’ve heard, okay? He’s having a rough time about something. What exactly it is doesn’t really matter.”

“It obviously matters,” Brian argues. “If he’s that sad—and he hasn’t posted in a week, Roger! He’s already missed his usual weekly posting time on Monday. He hasn’t even updated his Instagram story. He’s just gone silent.”

“I can’t help you,” Roger says flatly, raising his eyebrows. “I wish I could. Maybe it has something to do with your last video. I don’t know.”

Brian frowns. “My last video?”

“Brian, I don’t know,” Roger says again, this time more firmly.

Brian huffs, rolling over on the couch and staring at the wall. He didn’t think his last video would change Freddie’s mood so much. If he’d known, maybe he wouldn’t have done it. Or, no—done it differently, maybe.

Yes. That’s more like it.

Roger nudges him gently. “Hey, if you want some good news I’ve got some for you.”

“What?” Brian asks distractedly.

Maybe he should message Freddie. No, that would probably be too much. They don’t really have that kind of a friendship.

They don’t really have a friendship at all, actually.

“Brian? Are you listening?” Roger nudges him again. “You’re gonna want to hear this.”

He takes a breath, gathering himself into the here and now. “What is it, Rog?” he asks tiredly.

Roger seems to be stifling a smile. “We got invited to Vidcon,” he says quietly. “In LA. We’re going.”

Brian’s world grinds to a halt. _“What.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After all the wild sci-fi/fantasy aus I’m trying to finally return to my modern college roots, so here’s a bit of a spin on that! Because I’ve really enjoyed writing Pirates, but by god is it exhausting writing all that drama all the time.
> 
> Thanks to all of you for your love and support! You mean the world to me 😊 I’m going to try to keep on schedule with this one and publish a new chapter weekly (a little backstory on Freddie next), so hopefully I’ll see you soon!


	2. Chapter 2

Freddie Mercury does not live a charmed life.

Farrokh Bulsara hadn’t either, not that anyone had particularly cared. Sure, he came from a good family with just enough money to be comfortable. He grew up with a sister who loves him and two doting parents. His father wasn’t exactly accepting of his sexuality but he knows now not to question it directly, and for that Freddie is grateful.

But his teenage years had been hard.

It had been his teeth, for starters, and then it had been his eyes and his skin and his hair and everything else about him that people looked at and just thought was _wrong._ And then puberty had hit, leaving him a weird, gangly thing with pockmarked skin and a once-reliable singing voice which would now crack at every given opportunity. Add in a school full of judgmental tweens, and life had been hard.

He’d been standing before the mirror an hour before his fourteenth birthday, sobbing his eyes out because he had too much schoolwork to really be able to relax into a party, he was 90% sure that all his friends secretly hated him, and to top it off he had the world’s worst pimple above his left eyebrow which his squeezing and prodding had only turned into a raging, bleeding, inflamed mess, when everything changed.

The bathroom door opened and then closed again. “I need to do my makeup in here,” Kashmira said. “Can you get out?”

Freddie hiccuped, wiping his eyes against his sleeve hurriedly. “Like you need makeup. You’re not even old enough to wear it yet.”

“Mom said I’m old enough to wear a little eyeshadow as long as it’s light,” she said primly, holding out a sparkly lavender palette that must’ve cost all of two pounds. And then her eyes had caught his in the mirror, and she’d frowned. “Freddie, what’s wrong?”

“Leave it,” he said shortly. “It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not. You shouldn’t be crying on your birthday.”

Freddie just scoffed. Kashmira was lucky enough to be too young to know that not every birthday would be a happy one. Sometimes people cried on their birthdays—hell, sometimes people cried more on their birthdays than they did on any other day of the year.

Kashmira leaned closer. “Is it your forehead?”

“It’s about a million different things,” he said defensively, rolling his eyes.

She persisted. “You feel best when you look your best,” she said, digging through her makeup bag. It was about the size of a coin purse and decorated with Princess Jasmine, of all things. “That’s what mom always says. Can I help?”

Freddie thought about snapping at her, telling her to leave him alone to his misery. But really, what could go wrong? It’s not like he could possibly look any worse, or at least that’s what he remembered thinking when he looked himself over in the mirror: red eyes, bloody face, tired eyes and splotchy cheeks.

And Kashmira hadn’t done a perfect job—far from it, in fact. Her concealer was a little cakey, dotted on carefully with her fingers. It was dollar store-watery and not quite the right shade. He knows that now.

But back then it had meant the world. It had meant a mask, literal and figurative. It had meant confidence and a place to go—not to hide, but just to escape judgement for a while.

And that’s how Freddie Mercury got into makeup.

“My sister used to use this brand,” he says, holding up the bottle in front of his palm so that the camera can focus on it. “She used to buy it from the discount store by our house when she was about…twelve, I think? This is actually the first product I ever wore,” he adds with a laugh. “So, here. I’m starting this video out with the absolute worst of the worst. I want you guys to know that there is no price point when it comes to looking your best. Sure; better, more expensive products will _work_ better, but that doesn’t mean they’re absolutely necessary. It’s just about feeling your best.”

He’s no stranger to rude comments. A lot of people don’t really get it, honestly. People see what he does as a way to hide or change himself—and yes, he’s gotten more than his fair share of comments about first dates in swimming pools and how makeup is a form of trickery—but he comforts himself in knowing that his subscribers are fully aware that that’s not what it’s about.

It’s just about finding a way to tolerate yourself, until you can learn to love yourself.

He says as much as he rubs the product in. “We’re not hiding anything today,” he says conversationally, wincing at the tackiness of the foundation on his fingers. “Ugh. I forgot how this stuff feels. It’s not ideal, but look: I’m not even using a brush and I can still get it on nice and even. Anyway, we’re not hiding anything. Before you start following these steps I want you to take a moment to just look into your own eyes and know that whoever you see looking back is the love of your life. That person is the only person who is ever going to matter. Nobody else’s opinion counts. Your face can change, your hair can change, your body can and will change…hell, darlings, even your minds can change. Those eyes will always be the same though, and I want you to remember that.”

He finishes rubbing the product in with a final flourish before smiling at the camera. “All done, then. Now, let’s talk contour.”

The door clicks open behind him and he pauses the video quickly, turning to look as John walks in. John gives him a distracted wave, murmuring quietly into his earbuds.

“Deaky?” he calls.

“Sorry,” he calls quickly. “Phone.”

Freddie rolls his eyes. “We’re in a Mexican stand-off, then. I’m mid-recording right now.”

John winces. “I’ll be upstairs. I’ll keep it down.”

He goes stomping up the stairs, still rapidly talking into the microphone. Freddie hears an aborted laugh before John’s door slams closed.

He sighs, looking around the room. He’d moved all the general clutter of their shared lives—bookbags, clothes, dirty mugs and bits of circuit boards—out of the view of the camera. A triangle of space behind him is pristine all the way to the couch and the pretty lights strung up on the walls. The rest of the room is a goddamned disaster.

His phone pings as a dm comes through on twitter. It’s from someone he hasn’t heard of, probably some concerned fan or follower from the looks of it: _fyi Brian May just called you a snob in his most recent video._

Freddie Mercury sighs. No, he most certainly does not have a charmed life. He has a lot of small problems, but the main one is named Brian May.

He hadn’t meant to start a feud.

He’d thought the comment he’d made about Roger had been offhand. It _was_ offhand. He’s pretty sure Roger himself had found it funny, or at least that’s what John seemed to think.

The fact that John watched Roger’s channel almost religiously didn’t weigh into any of this. Really, Freddie thought it was sweet—or he would have, anyway, if he wasn’t so tired of hearing Roger Taylor’s voice echoing through their walls at two in the morning, accompanied with video game rifle noises and computer generated grunts of pain. What an odd world they live in.

Anyway.

He’s pretty sure Roger thought it was funny. So why exactly his roommate lost his cool so fucking rapidly, Freddie wasn’t sure.

He didn’t really get ASMR, at the time. The whole concept of it was…weird, and vaguely uncomfortable, and he never liked personal attention all that much, so he had no idea how anyone could find it relaxing.

Something about Brian was different.

Freddie had only turned the video on to see exactly what it was that his own subscribers were so up-in-arms about. What he wasn’t expecting was for the camera to be focused on a cramped laundry room, blue-lit from the indirect sunlight of yet another summer dusk. The man before the camera was somehow sleep-rumpled at six in the afternoon, his hair in loose, tangled curls. He was wearing an Imperial jumper that just screamed softness, the sleeves falling down his very slender, very long fingers and the collar stretched out from hundreds of washes to show off the way his milky collarbones caught the light.

To put it plainly, he was pretty.

Really pretty.

And that was before he even started talking, his lips curving into an awkward smile as he addressed the camera. That was before Freddie heard the rhythmic cadence of his voice, his whispered words making the mic crackle in a way that had his eyes dipping shut automatically. That was before Brian reached up to scratch one graceful finger against the mic’s windshield and smile at the camera in a way that had tingles immediately erupting across Freddie’s scalp like magic.

Which. _What._

And of course he’d watched all his old videos then, and _of course_ he’d subscribed. And of course he’d gotten to the point where he had trouble falling asleep without Brian’s voice in his ear, whispering sweetly about astronomy and physics and occasionally just doing his homework, murmuring to himself over the sound of his mechanical pencil scratching against his notebook paper soothingly.

And of course he’d ended up in his current predicament.

Because Brian never stops teasing him, and he never stops teasing Brian, but that doesn’t change the fact that any time he has a bad day Brian’s channel is the first place he goes. It doesn’t change the fact that more often than not the first thing he does is stomp home, throw himself down on the couch and put his earbuds in, only for John to laugh when he finds him half an hour later completely zoned out and fairly dead to the world while Brian prattles on about zodiacal dust or whatever fancy scientific term he’s currently defining.

(Which almost makes it worse, because of course on top of his beauty and his sweet voice and the fact that he also can apparently sing, and songwrite, and play guitar, and _build guitars from scratch_ , Brian also happens to be an actual genius. Of course.)

What this all boils down to is Freddie is hurrying to finish his current video, certainly not spending the amount of effort on it that he should, just so that he can watch Brian’s latest clip sooner. It’s only years of practice that let him get away with it, really. He could do his eyeliner with his left hand and both eyes closed, at this point.

When he finally finishes he rushes to turn off his vanity light, quickly checking that his brushes are clean and all his products are closed. He’s just about to hurry off to his room when John’s door opens upstairs. A moment later the man himself appears, crossing to their kitchenette to put the kettle on.

“Tea?” John calls.

Freddie winces. “I was about to go upstairs.”

“Come sit with me. I want to talk to you.”

“Why? Are you pregnant?”

John rolls his eyes. “Idiot. I just miss you, is all.”

That manages to melt his heart in the way that Deaky always does when he shares…any sort of emotional sentiment or sign of weakness at all, really. He’s pretty sure that John knows he has that power, at this point.

John plunks two mugs down on the table as Freddie pulls out a chair. He pours hot water into each, his face carefully impassive, before returning the kettle to the counter and then sitting down. It’s only once he’s stirring his tea with lazy flicks of his wrist that he speaks, Freddie watching him warily all the while.

“I’ve been thinking about something,” John starts.

When he doesn’t immediately continue Freddie raises his eyebrows. “That’s a dangerous thing to do, you know,” he says mildly.

“Just—I don’t really know how to bring this up in a way that doesn’t sound…”

“What?”

“Dickish, I guess,” John supplies, then licks his lips thoughtfully as he thinks. “How’d filming go?”

“As well as it could,” Freddie replies. “Who were you on the phone with?”

John starts. “Nobody you know.”

Freddie raises his eyebrows but John still says nothing. “So you were thinking about…what exactly?”

John licks his lips again. “Okay, I’m just going to…it’s about Brian, alright?”

“Brian,” Freddie repeats, his chest clenching in a way he isn’t sure he wants to examine.

“Yeah,” John says, plowing on. “I’m worried about you. I’m worried that this is getting out of control.”

“What?”

“I know that you think this is all just fun and games,” John continues.

“Wait a minute, darling,” Freddie says, plunking the sugar down pointedly. “Hold on. What exactly is it about having an internet rival that’s _fun?”_

“You’re flirting,” John says flatly.

“I am not!”

“You are too.”

“I am _not!”_

John raises his eyebrows. “Look, it doesn’t even matter, alright? It’s just—they seem like good people and I _like_ them, and I know that you’re just teasing or flirting or whatever—”

“For the last time—”

“But,” John says firmly, “you’re a good person too, and I trust you to know when to draw the line.”

Freddie squints at him, trying to work out what he’s saying. “Is this about Roger Taylor?” he asks finally.

John immediately blushes. “No.”

“You’re blushing.”

John rolls his eyes. “So what if I am?”

“You like him,” Freddie says, his jaw dropping.

“Of course I like him. I like his content.”

“No, you _like_ him.” And then he gasps, pressing a hand against his chest as the pieces all fall into place. “Oh my god. He’s who you were talking with on the phone.”

John sighs. “This really wasn’t where I was trying to go with this.”

“John,” Freddie says solemnly. “We’ve been friends since you were twelve. You really can’t hide this kind of thing.”

“Just like you can’t hide your raging crush for a one curly-haired space enthusiast.”

“Don’t try to change the subject.”

John rolls his eyes again. “Just—please _think_ about it, alright?”

“Fine,” Freddie says softly. “Fine. For you, I will think about it.”

“Thank you,” John singsongs, taking a sip of his tea.

Roger Taylor is a bit of an internet anomaly.

The first oddity is that for a youtube gamer, he’s highly inoffensive—in fact, he’s downright _likeable,_ which Freddie finds frankly disturbing. He’s funny, optimistic, regularly swears up a blue streak during streams but has never once resorted to reciting every slur he’s ever heard like many of his colleagues tend to do, and of course the fact that he’s objectively gorgeous and knows how to dress helps as well.

The second oddity is that for a youtube gamer, he really seems to hate video games.

“I hate the plot of this game,” Roger says as onscreen his character…avatar thing, whatever, Freddie doesn’t know—runs through a grassy field. “I literally fucking hate it and I just want you all to know that. Actually, I don’t even really care what the plot is at this point. Welcome to day five of me ignoring the plot of Skyrim so that I can bring my John Deacon-lookalike husband more gifts. Today I’m collecting cabbages for him, because I talked to the real John Deacon on the phone the other day and he informed me that they are the worst vegetable. John, I just want you to know that despite the gift itself, it is the thought that counts.”

On screen he comes across what appears to be a cart of cabbages and rapidly adds them to his inventory.

“Our house is just full of cheese, cabbage and dogs right now,” Roger adds. “It’s honestly hilarious.”

Freddie blinks at the screen and wonders, not for the first time, what the fuck is happening to him.

Class turns out to be a real bore all week, punctuated only by lackluster studio sessions on Freddie’s part; the art building is half-packed with stressed grad students as it is and is a mess on its best days, but painting has always provided him with at least a little peace. Of course, the acrylic paint caked under his nails is less than ideal when he’s supposed to be pretending to have his life together on youtube.

He at least has the room mostly clean by the time he’s ready to start filming—and by mostly clean, he means that all the clutter has been taken out of view of the camera only to be carelessly flung into every other corner of the space.

John himself is one thing that refuses to move; he looks rather comfy where he’s eating an egg muffin on the couch. Freddie’s followers always seem to find his ‘cryptid appearances’ hilarious anyway, so Freddie lets him be.

“You’ll notice my lovely roommate in the background,” he says, winking at the camera. “Deaky, say hi.”

As is to be expected, John provides no response. Freddie grins.

“Deaky isn’t really in this video for any particular reason—not that we don’t want him here, obviously—oh, shit. Uh, this is the cream contour kit by e.l.f., by the way, and I’m being very gentle on the contrast because I want this look to be nice and light for spring. Anyway, as I was saying, Deaky is really only in the frame because he refused to move. Welcome to the vlog, Deaks.”

John grunts at that, which Freddie will chalk down as a success.

“Yeah, yeah,” Freddie mutters, starting on his contour. “You know, there’s been a little chatter recently about this roommate of mine, dear subscribers,” he says conversationally, eyes flicking to the mirror to watch John’s reaction. “There’s been a rumour about him and a certain Roger Taylor going round, in fact.” It’s only because he’s looking that he sees John drop his sandwich in surprise. “Deaky,” Freddie calls. “Would that be true?”

“Fuck off, Fred,” John calls back flatly. “What do you want, anyway?”

Freddie turns back to the camera, continuing to blend his contour. “Well, what I _want_ is to know if you would inquire as to whether his lovely best friend is permanently that bitchy, or if the stick up his ass is removable.”

In the mirror John’s eyes snap up, his gaze meeting Freddie’s own head-on as he sets down his sandwich.

“Too far?” Freddie asks, wincing.

“He’s not bitchy, Freddie,” John says firmly. “No more than you are.”

“That’s offensive, dear,” Freddie says loftily. “You know how I love to be the best at everything.”

John rolls his eyes. “You know, he’s just trying to protect Roger, the same way you’re always trying to protect me. Did you ever think about that?”

And Freddie has; of course he has. The fact that Brian is so fiercely protective of his roommate is something Freddie respects in him; hell, that sense of loyalty is probably one of the things that has Freddie sighing blissfully every time he sees his face on the screen of his iPhone.

Loathe be he to admit that, though.

“I can’t say I spend any time thinking about him at all, actually.”

“We all know that’s a blatant fucking lie,” John mutters.

Freddie sits up straighter. “I’m going to have to edit this all out, you know,” he tells him. “If there’s anything you want to say, just say it.”

John looks at him tiredly. “I’m not trying to fight with you over this, Fred.”

“I know,” Freddie murmurs. He takes a breath. “I know. Listen, I don’t mean it like _that._ You know I don’t. I could never mean it like that. It’s just teasing. He knows that full well.”

“How are you so sure?”

“Because either he means it teasingly just like I do,” Freddie says, “or else he doesn’t, and he’s an asshole. And I like to believe that he’s a good person.”

John is silent for a beat. “And how do you know that he doesn’t think _you’re_ the asshole?”

And Freddie doesn’t know how to answer that one; not really.

“I don’t want you two to meet around a campfire singing kumbaya or anything like that,” John says softly. “I don’t care what you do. I just wish the two of you would see that you’re doing this for the same reasons. Maybe if you weren’t so busy measuring your dick sizes you’d realize that you’re not so different after all.”

Freddie turns that over in his head long enough that John picks up his sandwich again. When he finally feels more like himself he lets the mask descend: a glint of mischief in his eyes, a quirk at the edge of his mouth. He picks his beauty blender back up.

“I’m only teasing, you know,” he announces to the camera, and when it comes out a bit too honest he flutters his eyelashes before going back to work on his contour. “What Brian May does or does not shove up his ass is nobody’s business but his own.”

Behind him, he hears John sigh.

He tries to stay upbeat through the rest of the video. It’s hard. The truth is an odd sense of guilt is weighing on him. No doubt John is to blame for it. This feud has never made him feel guilty before.

Does Brian know that it’s all teasing? That it’s a grab for subscribers at worse and a bit of flirting at best? That none of it is _real?_

It bothers him well into the night, and he could almost kick himself when he realizes that the only thing that can really dispel his bad mood is Brian himself.

It feels wrong to open his channel and seek out comfort. It feels like he’s using him, especially given Freddie’s current mood. He teases Brian mercilessly and writes it off as a joke, then immediately turns around and uses him to soothe his guilt for doing so.

It’s not right.

Brian has a new video out, quite simply titled _I Do Visual Triggers And Talk At You._ When Freddie clicks on it it appears to be exactly what it says.

Brian is sitting at what Freddie has come to know as his desk. The wall behind him is covered with the light blue tapestry that always hangs there, the zodiac following a golden band across the sky while the milky way glitters in the middle. There are fairy lights strung up, and there must be more behind the camera because Brian’s eyes are glittering like they contain the stars themselves.

_Brian._

His hair is loose and tangled like he’s been messing with it, and the low lighting doesn’t quite manage to hide how exhausted he looks. Despite that he sends the camera a smile immediately, the corners of his mouth pinching like even that is a strain, and Freddie sinks further into his pillows as his guilt only worsens.

What has he been doing? Why does he look like he hasn’t been sleeping? Is he _alright?_

“Hi,” Brian whispers straight into the mic, his eyes flitting away from the camera distractedly. He flutters his fingers gently sideways, the sound of skin brushing skin rasping through Freddie’s earphones, and he immediately feels his spine relax.

“I try to keep things light,” Brian continues, still continuing those same motions even as he visibly works to gather his thoughts, “and I really don’t like to talk about my own issues on here because I know so many of you come here to escape and to feel better. But I know that there’s a sense of comfort in solidarity, and I want to give that to you. So if you’re feeling down or unhappy right now, I want you to know that I understand and that it’s going to be okay.”

He’d expected a jab at himself by now. Part of it confuses him, but he’s so easily lost in Brian’s voice that it’s difficult to care too much. He lets his eyes drift half shut as Brian continues.

“I’ve suffered—actually, I always hated when people said it like that. I’ve been _living_ with depression for longer than I can remember, now. And I try not to suffer from it, because at this point I’ve gotten a lot better at managing it and I’m beyond happy with where I am in my life. I love what I’m studying,” he whispers and then grins, and when the fairy lights manage to catch the wetness lingering in his eyes Freddie’s own chest clenches, “I love my friends, I love that I can do these things online and bring joy into people’s lives—and for the most part I’m so, so happy. But that doesn’t change that there are still days when that all goes away. And it’s not anyone’s fault—not really—but sometimes little things can just start to build and build and before I know it there’s just this dark wave that I can’t break out of.”

He pauses to trace the microphone with the pad of his finger, the sound going straight to Freddie’s head. It feels utterly close, as if Brian’s in the same room as him, and for one moment he almost wishes that he were—that Freddie could reach out and touch him, could apologize to him, could tell him everything that he meant when he said all the things he didn’t.

But he can’t. He’s been an utter prick to him because he thought it was just how they _talked_ , but instead he was hurting Brian the whole damned time. Brian, who he holds so much fondness and respect for.

Brian’s eyelashes flutter against his cheekbones as he pauses to blow lightly into the mic before continuing. “I want you to know that this isn’t going to last,” he whispers, and tingles race down Freddie’s spine. “If you’re feeling down right now, I want you to know that those bad days are so, so hard to bear when they come, but that they always pass. And sometimes you need a day to just let yourself be sad, and that’s okay, but just know that those days are not the ones that define you. You’re a good person,” he adds, looking directly into the camera, and Freddie’s eyes prickle, “and no matter what people say to you, you’re going to be okay.”

He has to pause it there.

He can’t take comfort from Brian; not like that. He can’t be comforted by the sweet words and thoughtful movements of the man he holds so much fondness for, who he called a stuck-up bitch mere days ago; he just can’t.

Instead, his brain still saturated in a blissed-out fog, he lets a few tears slip out as he drifts off to sleep.

He’s always been an early riser. John notices when he sleeps late.

So of course John notices when he doesn’t leave his room at all.

“Are you dead?” John calls through the wood at around four in the afternoon.

Freddie rips out his earbud (so he’s been listening to seventeen-year-old Brian singing And I Love Her while simultaneously doing some fiddly guitar playing for the last hour, sue him) and turns toward the door. “I’m fine, darling,” he calls back.

John pushes the door open suspiciously, his head appearing through the gap. “Are you sick?”

“No.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, of course.”

John frowns at him, his eyes worried as he wavers uncertainly in the doorway. “I was going to order Chinese,” he says hesitantly. “Have you eaten?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You’re not sure if you’ve eaten today?”

Freddie shrugs. “No, I think I did this morning.”

John gives him an unimpressed look, but the raw concern that’s wrinkling his brow makes it fall flat. “I’m buying you food.”

“You don’t have to,” Freddie says quickly.

“No, I’m going to.”

“Just something small, then. Spring rolls or something.”

“Spring rolls and mu shu.”

“I don’t need mu shu.”

“I’m getting mu shu for myself, then. But you’re eating some of it.”

His stomach growls. “Why mu shu?”

John shrugs. “Spring rolls and mu shu. Chinese taquito, Chinese burrito.”

Despite himself, Freddie’s lips twitch upward. “Set that to a beat and you’ve got the makings of something viral,” he supplies.

John sends him a soft smile, his eyes crinkling fondly. “There he is,” he murmurs.

His funk lingers for several days.

He drags himself to class and back. He spends a little too long in the studio, losing himself in thick swirls of oils and impasto, blending colors until they’re vibrantly dreamy and painful to look at while Montserrat Caballe sings crystal-clear arias through his headphones.

He does the shopping, he tries to cook, he doesn’t bother putting makeup on, he doesn’t spend a single second even thinking about posting on youtube, and he sinks deeper into himself.

John is an angel through all of it, for which Freddie can only be grateful. He’s blessed to have the friends he does, truly.

“I made you this,” John murmurs, knocking on his door softly at two in the morning with two cups of hot chocolate in his hands.

Freddie smiles at him tiredly. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Though I’m posting a tutorial, so it’s your turn to make it next time,” he adds with a cheeky smile. He walks over to Freddie’s bed, handing over one of the mugs. “How are you feeling?”

“Alright,” Freddie says with a gentle shrug. He takes a slow sip and sighs when the rich taste of good chocolate hits his tongue. “I’m sorry I’m dragging this out so long.”

John settles next to him, his back resting against Freddie’s headboard and his feet tucked under the covers just like they used to sit when they were kids. “Don’t apologize,” John murmurs, and Freddie smiles when John bumps their shoulders together. “Everybody has slumps. You’re alright.”

Freddie licks his lips. Despite it all he still hasn’t talked to John about the situation in full. “Do you really think he hates me?” he asks softly.

“Brian?”

Freddie nods.

“No, Fred,” John says softly. “No. I don’t think he hates you.”

“Does Roger?”

John sighs gently. “I don’t think so, but I don’t know. We try not to talk about it.”

Freddie fidgets with his mug. “Do you—"

John’s phone pings.

“Sorry,” John says quickly, digging it out.

“Text?”

“No,” he murmurs with a frown. “Some sort of weird email. It doesn’t matter. What were you saying?”

Freddie’s phone pings.

_VidCon invites you to j…_

“Um,” Freddie says succinctly.

“Is this real?”

He clicks on it. He scans the contents quickly. “It sure looks real,” he mutters.

“You’re kidding.”

Their eyes meet, everything else forgotten. John repeats himself, voice nearly raised to a squeal.

“You’re _kidding._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like the Grand Central Station ceiling mural somehow has a very Brian and Freddie sort of energy to it. Something about the art style and the way the stars glitter is just very them to me! 
> 
> Next chapter is going to be the four of them being idiots in LA. It might take a little longer than this one did, but it'll hopefully not be longer than two weeks. Let me know what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

Heathrow is a madhouse, as usual.

They took the tube in. They’d had to get up practically before the sun in order to make it, and Roger had complained the entire way. It wasn’t as though he didn’t have a leg to stand on. As it turns out, being invited to a convention as a featured creator is a little different when you happen to live in Europe. While they were assured that all amenities would be glamorous and generously covered and that their participation at the con would be compensated, they were on their own for their flight.

“Why invite us at all if they don’t want to make things easy for us?” Roger grumbled as he dragged his suitcase bodily down the stairs to the underground station, eyes hidden behind his sunglasses but the rest of his face more than successfully conveying his frown.

“They can hardly pay for every single person’s travel budget,” Brian reasoned mildly.

“Bullshit. We’re practically their employees. If they really want to cart us around the world they might as well help us out.”

“It’s not too late to turn around if you really don’t want to go,” Brian replied, a little fed up. He turned awkwardly through the gate as he swiped his oyster card, his duffel getting stuck on the doors as they opened and practically dragging him off his feet. He huffed as he righted himself, turning to watch Roger’s suitcase get firmly wedged into the exact same spot.

“That’s not what I meant,” Roger said quickly. He braced his foot on the end of the gate, all but ripping his suitcase free. The machine gave an angry buzzing sound, which they both promptly ignored. “Of course I want to go.”

Of course he did. Afterall, who didn’t want to go to something like this? Anyone who got an invite would be practically dying to go. Brian was testament to that.

Freddie still hadn’t posted anything. He probably wasn’t invited. Why that translates to radio silence, Brian isn’t sure.

And that brings him back to Heathrow, which is as much of a madhouse as it ever is. The din is slowly driving him toward insanity and he’s almost grateful to hand the stewardess his boarding pass and escape the rush of it all. He refreshes Freddie’s channel for the last time just before stepping onto the plane.

There’s still nothing.

The plane ride is as hectic as the rest of the day. Their cheap-as-humanly-possible tickets have gotten them seats right in the back, and Roger immediately winces as he whacks his knee against the seat in front of him. If Roger isn’t fitting then Brian doesn’t have a single hope, and it’s only confirmed when he sits down only to find that his legs aren’t anywhere close to fitting into the space in front of him. Roger just raises his eyebrows expectantly until Brian huffs, twisting in his chair to lean their legs together.

It could be worse. They were lucky to get cheap tickets so close to their departure date. He manages to get some sleep, the flight is smooth, and the people around him are polite.

And he’s going to Los Angeles. There’s that.

They get to the hotel just before dinner time.

The fact that they both slept doesn’t help their exhaustion by the time they arrive—and _that_ isn’t helped by the fact that he has his very own, frankly excessively large hotel room, complete with tasteful grey walls and a bathroom the size of his old student flat.

Never mind all that. All he cares about is the very fluffy, _very_ inviting looking bed.

“Absolutely not,” Roger says behind him, closing his door as he leaves the room across the hall from Brian’s. “No sleeping. Not yet.”

“You’re not my mum,” Brian sighs, still eyeing the bed. There are chocolates on the pillows and everything.

“Well, you know she’d say the same thing,” Roger counters. “If we go to bed this early we’ll never adjust. Come on. Let’s go downstairs.”

“I’m not hungry. We ate on the plane.”

“We’ll go to the hotel bar, then,” Roger says, then sighs sadly when Brian doesn’t move. “Don’t you want to look around a little?”

Brian sends the bed one last mournful look before following Roger out into the hall. “Not as badly as I want to sleep,” he replies sullenly.

Roger laughs. “You’ll have time later. Besides, it will be good to meet some new people.”

“Like anyone’s even going to be there,” Brian says.

The hotel bar is packed.

He should have expected as much. The con doesn’t start for a few more days yet, but of course people are beginning to gather regardless. It’s only to be expected.

“Let me buy you a drink,” a woman all but yells into his ear, her Californian accent long and bright and her lips smelling vaguely like bubblegum. A moment later she’s handing him something pink and sweet-smelling, and she laughs when he screws his face up at the unexpectedly sour taste.

“Brian?” Roger calls. “You good here?”

Roger’s been glancing around nervously all night. For the life of him Brian can’t figure out why.

“He’s good,” the woman says with a smile. “You want a drink? I’m buying.”

“Oh, no,” Roger says quickly, his eyes almost scared as he eyes the glass in Brian’s hand. “I’m good, thanks.”

“I’m buying everyone a drink!” the woman says, raising her voice somehow even louder, and around them people cheer.

“Sure you’re good?” Roger asks him.

He’s not; he’d really rather not be here at all, but he knows that some small part of Roger needed the moral support and that’s enough to have him smiling and nodding. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“Alright,” Roger says, eyeing the woman one last time. “Don’t wait up for me. Though I suppose I shouldn’t, either,” he adds with a wink, and then he’s disappearing off to another corner of the room.

But then the woman is disappearing as well barely five minutes later, and then the room around him slowly empties and he realizes he’s alone. He looks around briefly for Roger’s blond head before giving up just as fast. It’s just as well that Roger has picked someone up. At least one of them does.

He drains the rest of his sickly pink whatever-it-is before glancing at his watch. It’s at least a slightly more reasonable time to go to sleep, and the alcohol is already doing its job to drag him away from wakefulness.

He casts one last look around the bar as he leaves, searching for Roger. He doesn’t see either of them; instead, for just a split second, he catches sight of a familiar black head of hair before it’s lost in the crowd once more.

He checks his phone as he’s riding the elevator back to his suite. Freddie posted on Instagram sometime during Brian’s flight. It’s just a simple photo of him with sunglasses and a ridiculous beach hat on, radiant and laughing in the sun. _Welcome to LA!_ , the caption reads.

Brian lets his head fall back against the wall behind him.

Fuck.

He takes his time getting ready the next morning, throwing on a simple button down and some black jeans before doing his best to fight the frizz of his hair back into neat curls. Jet lag is taking some time to get used to, and he’d woken up automatically at an ungodly hour only to spend the rest of the morning trying to fall back asleep.

It hadn’t worked, and he only looks more tired for it.

He spends a long moment pressing a warm cloth against his eyes before dabbing concealer across the shadows beneath them, his thoughts wandering idly to a brushless tutorial Freddie had done not too long ago as he does. By the time he’s done he looks like he could _almost_ convince someone that he hadn’t been on an eleven-and-a-half-hour flight less than twenty-four hours before.

He knocks on Roger’s door as he leaves but gets no response. No doubt Roger is already running around Los Angeles, then. The schedule he has saved on his phone helpfully informs him that Roger doesn’t have any responsibilities until at least four in the afternoon, when their first round of meet-and-greets start. The morning is set aside for conventiongoers’ sign-in, and Roger probably took the opportunity to go explore. He’s a little miffed that Roger didn’t invite him, though that’s probably what he gets for trying to sleep in. Maybe Roger hadn’t been able to sleep, either.

He’s still flicking through his phone when he steps into the elevator, idly wondering if there’s a good coffee place nearby. He’s just about to open maps when the elevator dings, the doors sliding open on the twenty-eighth floor, and the sound of a _very_ familiar voice makes him raise his head.

“Well, you know that Virgin Atlantic always does a good job, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s really quite a long way, my dears. I was actually just telling my friend earlier this morning,” Freddie continues to his adoring fans, and then looks up and freezes.

Brian stares right back.

The elevator doors shudder as they start to close, only to jerk as the two girls following right behind Freddie yelp and hop quickly through the gap. And then Freddie blinks once—twice—licks his very full, _very_ pretty lips, and steps closer.

It gives Brian to take in his black top and skin-tight white jeans, the soft shine of his hair and the crisp neatness of his eyeliner. His eyeshadow is silver, glittery and vibrant. He looks ethereal and dangerous and beautiful.

Close, close, close. He’s short in real life, or at least he’s a good deal shorter than Brian. It’s something Brian didn’t even think about before this moment, but he knows now. If he were to pull Freddie just half a step closer he could tuck him right into his chest, warm and safe.

And then Freddie turns, and he remembers that he’s in a fucking _elevator,_ and the world comes back into focus as one of the girls hits the button for the seventeenth floor.

Freddie continues speaking as if nothing had happened. “You need a _lot_ of hydration to recover from all the flying—I’m sure you girls know that—and a little color works wonders as well. I love that shade on you by the way, Kelsie.”

The blond girl brightens. “Bombshell by MAC. I just think it’s so fun,” she chirps. “I love yours as well. I could never pull off a color like that. I only ever look good in pinks.”

He hums. “You’d really be surprised. You’ve got a lovely complexion, you know, and a nice dark berry can really be such a rebellious look. Fashion is all about breaking boundaries, anyway.”

“You’re so right,” she gushes.

“I love MAC. This is Verve,” he adds. “I think you could really rock it.”

Brian looks up from the text he was studiously pretending to read, Freddie avoiding his eyes in the mirrored walls of the elevator. Kelsie is watching Freddie adoringly, but Brian almost jumps when he realizes the other girl is staring directly at him.

“You’re Brian May,” she says softly, her voice practically swallowed by the continued chatter of her companions.

“…Yes?” he says, the word coming out like a question.

She glowers at him harshly, and all at once Freddie is breaking out of his conversation. “None of that, now,” he says swiftly, a smooth, close-lipped smile sweeping across his face in a way that makes something uncomfortable twist through Brian’s chest.

“But he’s—”

The elevator dings as it reaches the seventeenth floor.

“Ah, there you are, dears,” Freddie chirps with another odd smile. “You’re going to be late! You best get your badges and hurry, now.”

“Will you wait for us, Freddie?” Kelsie asks.

“No, no, dear. But I’ll see you down there, won’t I?”

They titter their goodbyes as the doors close, the elevator lurching before starting back into motion.

The silence is stifling. Brian goes quickly back to his phone, urging himself not to look up. He wants nothing more than to study Freddie—the clean line of his lips, the silver swept across his eyelids, the strong line of his jaw—but he knows that if he looks up only bad things will happen. It’s best they don’t acknowledge each other.

Freddie seems to have no such qualms.

“I’m sorry she was so rude to you,” he says, his voice soft and quiet, his boarding school-posh accent smooth and slightly lisped, and it’s so damned _weird_ to hear his voice in person that Brian looks up out of instinct.

But that doesn’t change his words.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Brian replies, his voice coming out a little harder than he means it to. “Your adoring fans only follow your example.”

Freddie frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Brian sighs, going back to his phone. If only this elevator would just hurry up so that they weren’t trapped here together anymore.

As if on cue, the elevator lurches before coming to an abrupt halt.

The two of them freeze, their eyes meeting in the mirror.

The intercom clicks on. “Sorry about that,” a tired voice says. “This elevator’s been acting up all morning. Increased traffic, and all that. It shouldn’t take too long to fix.”

“How long is ‘not too long?’” Freddie calls warily.

The speaker crackles as whoever it is sighs. “Ten minutes? I’m sorry, I’ll call maintenance right now.”

Freddie huffs, leaning back against the wall. Brian just rolls his eyes and goes back to his phone.

“Look,” Freddie says. “As long as we’ve got a moment alone we might as well talk about it, alright?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Brian says swiftly.

“Brian, I’m really trying to be the better man here.”

“Better man,” Brian says curtly, his blood simmering, and he pockets his phone as he turns to face Freddie head-on. “Better than what example, exactly? Your own? Because you’ve never once tried to apologize or slow down. If you really cared about your own behavior—”

“ _My_ behavior,” Freddie repeats incredulously. “Just because I’m apologizing does _not_ mean you’re innocent in this!”

“What? You think I’m not? You come after my _friend,_ and then you come after me when I defend—”

“I didn’t _come after_ Roger! I made one fucking comment! It was a joke, Brian! It’s not my fault your pride couldn’t take it!”

“My pride,” Brian echoes, stepping forward. He’s distantly aware that they’re practically chest to chest now, firmly in each other’s space. He can practically count Freddie’s lush eyelashes this close and can take in the gentle brown of his eyes that the fury of his expression and the darkness of his makeup can’t quite hide. “That’s what you think the problem is. That I’m too _prideful._ Look in a damned mirror, Freddie. It’s all you ever seem to do.”

“And you never seem to listen to yourself, for all that you like to hear yourself talk,” Freddie hisses. “You fucking egotistical, prideful piece of work. And to think I actually felt sorry for you. You’re intolerable.”

“You’re insufferable,” Brian replies, and Freddie’s eyes darken. “I’m glad to know that the man lives up to the image.”

“Likewise. Asshole.”

“Wanker.”

“I hate you,” he growls, and then he lunges forward and kisses him.

Brian’s brain flatlines. Everything freezes as he tries to make the connection between Freddie stepping into his space to insult him, and Freddie biting at his lip and tangling his fingers in Brian’s hair. Freddie was—Freddie _is_ —

Freddie is a really good kisser.

His frustration rears its head again at how pushy he is, sucking insistently at Brian’s lower lip and biting at it just this side of painful. His brain helpfully comes back online at that, and Brian snarls in the back of his throat before pushing back just as good as he’s getting, dragging Freddie’s hips into his own and licking into his mouth when Freddie gasps in shock. Freddie’s _mean_ , and he’s not startled for long. He pulls hard at Brian’s hair and backs him up against one of the walls until Brian just pushes back against him, turning them until he can press Freddie into the corner.

“You’re the fucking worst person,” Freddie starts, pulling away to mouth at Brian’s neck, somehow perfectly finding the sensitive spot at the hollow under his jaw instantly, and Brian can’t quite fight back a soft groan, “I have ever met in my life. Do you know that?”

“The feeling is more than mutual, believe me,” Brian snaps, and when he rolls his hips into Freddie’s Freddie surprises him by hooking his knee around Brian’s hip. Brian really isn’t sure how he managed to do that in those jeans, but he’s not complaining.

He cups his hand below Freddie’s knee to support some of the weight, Freddie gasping at the motion, his head falling backward against the mirror and his lips hanging open, and Brian has to kiss him then, deep and possessive, their bodies all but glued together and Freddie somehow feeling so, so right in his arms. He’s sucking on Brian’s tongue in a way that has his blood immediately fizzing, his head spinning as all his blood rushes downward, his hand that was gripping Freddie’s hip wandering down to squeeze the slight curve of his ass. Freddie gasps, rutting up, and—

The elevator lurches back into motion.

They spring apart, Freddie looking at him wide-eyed with lipstick smeared across his mouth as a wall of sound greets them. It takes barely a few seconds before they’re at the mezzanine, the bell dinging pleasantly as the doors slide open.

Packed. The place is _packed._

It’s mostly teenagers and young, white-teethed adults dressed in loudly bright colors, loudly talking and snapping pictures as they stand around sign-in tables and booths. And that’s just the fourth mezzanine; he can’t see the others, let alone the bar or the floor of the lobby itself, but he can already hear the noise rising up and up and up.

He’d forgotten how loud Americans can be.

A few people cheer as Freddie comes into sight, all but running out of the elevator to get away from Brian, and Brian just prays he hasn’t been recognized because one look at his own reflection in the mirrored walls tells him he looks thoroughly debauched: hair tangled, lips bruised, cheeks flushed, Verve by MAC smeared across his mouth and neck, a hickey blooming just beneath his jaw—

Yeah. This isn’t happening.

He hits the button for his own floor quickly, the doors shutting with blessed ease. As soon as he’s hidden from view he paces the small space, scrubbing a hand through his hair as he tries to gather his wits about him.

What the _fuck_ just happened?

He presses the heels of his palms to his eyelids, but all that accomplishes is bring back the image of Freddie sprawled against the wall, his mouth hanging open in shock and pleasure. Arousal zips through his blood and he huffs.

The elevator dings again (and that cheery sound is really starting to feel like it’s mocking him) before the doors slide open on his floor. He steps out of the elevator, only to be met with someone blocking his way.

He looks up and is met with the sight of a one John Deacon.

Grey eyes flick over his face before lingering on his neck for a moment. His serene expression breaks as he huffs out an incredulous laugh, stepping neatly around Brian’s still-frozen form only to silently enter the elevator. The wretched thing dings again as the doors close behind him.

Brian huffs to himself, trudging down the hall and unlocking his door. Finally, blessedly alone, he leans against it for a long moment as he takes a slow breath. When he no longer feels like he’s about to either combust or have a stroke he pushes away from the surface and steps into the massive bathroom, ripping open one of the hotel-supplied makeup wipes and scrubbing viciously at the dark stains on his neck.

When they’re finally gone he digs a bottle of water out of the fridge and cracks it open, downing half of it in one go. His eyes wander to the window and the mess of traffic below.

It’s only then that he wonders why John was on his floor in the first place.

“Just avoid him,” Roger tells him, and Brian rolls his eyes.

He’d been wandering around the area for an hour or so before coming across Roger utterly by chance, sitting in a coffee shop overlooking the water. Between his dark sunglasses and his uncharacteristically subtle olive-green shirt—something Brian’s never seen in his life, so Roger must have been shopping that morning—he’s blending right into the crowds. Brian takes a moment to curse his own lanky frame and cloud of hair. He’s beyond hoping not to be recognized, at this point.

“I can’t just avoid him,” Brian replies. “He’s gone and gotten booked in the same hotel, hasn’t he? Besides, it’s not like I can just magically stay out of his way when we’re both attending the same con.”

“It’s not so hard, really,” Roger reasons with a shrug, taking a sip of his iced coffee. “He’s not on any of your panels, now is he? You hardly do beauty vlogs. Just stay out of his way at multi-panelist things and call it a day. It shouldn’t be that hard.”

“And yet,” Brian sighs. He stabs his straw bitterly through the whipped cream on his iced mocha, the fluff of it swirling together with the coffee and chocolate.

Roger frowns at him. “He really can’t be _that_ bad, can he?”

Brian looks up at him through his eyelashes, eyebrows raised.

“Alright,” Roger laughs, “maybe he can. Fuck, what did he even say to you?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Brian mutters, stabbing his straw once more. “Just some stuff about how apparently I’m an egotistical jackass and intolerable to be around and the worst person he’s ever met.”

Roger raises his eyebrows. “Is that all?”

“No. I think he called me a wanker. Or maybe I called him a wanker. I don’t know. A lot of words were thrown around. And to think I ever felt _sorry_ for the guy. This entire time I thought he was on radio silence because he was upset about something. He was probably just sitting in his room thinking up insults.”

Roger sets his coffee down on the table, his lips pursing as he studies Brian. His eyes are completely hidden, and it sends a stab of frustration through Brian’s chest.

“I can’t tell what you’re thinking when you do that,” he says.

Roger waves his hand. “I’m not, really. It’s just…I don’t know. This whole thing is just so odd to me.’

“What’s odd about it?”

“I dunno. He seems—I mean, he seems _nice,_ Brian. Why would he just come after you like that?”

“He’s not nice,” Brian says swiftly. “You should have seen him today. All his fake smiles and doting fans. And he’s rude! He’s so bloody rude for no apparent reason whatsoever!”

“Well that’s the thing, though,” Roger says quickly, cutting him off from his tirade. “There’s no reason at all, is there? That’s what I don’t get.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means either that he’s secretly an asshole and everyone’s fooled—”

“Which is likely,” Brian mutters.

“—or it means that there’s still some sort of misunderstanding going on. I don’t believe that people can just be bad, Brian. You know I don’t, and I know that you think the same thing.”

Brian shrugs. “I guess theories are made to be tested,” he says, though the rolling wave of anger that’s been spreading through his chest since the morning is finally cooling down. He takes a long sip of coffee, and the chocolate blooms warm and sweet across his tongue.

Theories are certainly made to be tested and broken—particularly his idea that Freddie is nothing more than a stone-cold bitch.

They have a meet and greet that afternoon. The room is fairly large and he’d lost Roger within a half-hour. He’s keeping to himself, for the most part. Drinks are flowing, waiters running this way and that with champagne and sparkling apple juice in neatly-marked glasses, handing them out to adults and teenagers alike. The atmosphere is good: it’s warm and sociable, and chatter is rising and falling pleasantly. It tamps down his unease tremendously, and between the drinks and the crowd of people around him he feels his shoulders relax as his bad mood slips away.

It’s well into the evening when he feels a hand tug on his sleeve.

“Camille,” a woman chides, and when he turns around there’s a girl there, maybe no more than ten years old, her curly black hair held on top of her head in a fluffy ball by a sparkly purple hair tie, her eyelids sparkly purple to match. “Come on, we’ve talked about this. You have to use your words, honey.”

“It’s alright,” Brian says immediately, turning around to face the two of them.

“She’s a fan,” the woman supplies.

“A fan, huh?” he asks, crouching to her level and managing to keep his calm façade even as he frantically thinks back to any moments in his videos that might not be considered child appropriate. “I didn’t know people your age had the patience for that kind of thing,” he adds jokingly, glancing up at the woman.

She scoffs out a laugh. “She only started because she saw me watching. She’s not into ASMR, though.”

“I want to be a scientist,” she all but whispers to him. “I want to go to outer space.”

He really can’t fight back a grin at that. “I bet you’re going to make it,” he tells her, and she smiles at her purple shoes.

“Camille had a question she wanted to ask you,” the woman says pointedly. “She wanted to know if she could get a picture with you and Freddie Mercury. You two are her favorites.”

And really, how is he going to deny a request like that?

He lets the girl drag him through the crowd, her tiny hand clasping his until she lets go abruptly as they come across Freddie. He’s practically a guiding light amidst all the people, charisma oozing from every pore even as his oddly plastic smile stretches across his face. The minute he sees Camille that changes entirely, a real grin spreading across his face and crinkling his eyes.

Brian feels his heart flop over pathetically in his chest, which. What.

“Did you find him?” Freddie asks her quietly, crouching down so he can hear her shy voice. “I know, he’s hard to miss in a crowd with that head of hair of his.”

“Freddie,” Brian greets crisply, keeping his polite smile firmly in place, and he doesn’t think he imagines the way Freddie’s eyes stick to where he must know Brian’s covered the mark he left with concealer. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Well, who am I to deny requests from my adoring fans, hmm?” he asks with a polite smile of his own. Camille murmurs something to him from behind her hand and he actually laughs, head thrown back and mouth for once not covered by his hand, and.

Wow.

“I’m sorry, a fan of _both_ of us, apparently.”

“She’s going to be a scientist,” Brian says, not without a touch of pride, and Camille sends him a gap-toothed grin. “She’s going to go into outer space.”

“Yeah?” Freddie asks with a grin. “You’re going to study solar dust and things like Brian is?”

Brian frowns. “How’d you know I’m…”

“I watch your videos, dear,” Freddie says patiently, rolling his eyes.

Brian manages to get over his shock—Freddie watches his videos, actually _watches_ and listens to them—just in time for Camille’s mother to snap a photo. Camille turns to Freddie to continue her ongoing murmur into his ear as Brian straightens, forcefully trying not to think about Freddie and children and Freddie with children and Freddie smiling without any sort of reserve and Freddie being good with kids.

“Thanks for this,” the woman says. “It means a lot. I know how it is, with the whole…”

“Of course,” Brian says quickly. “It’s nothing, really. If that’s what you’re referring to, anyway. Me and him are—”

“No, I know,” she hurries. “I honestly thought it was all made up for a long time. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t know anything about the situation.”

Brian frowns. “Made up?”

She shrugs. “Well, people do all sorts of things for publicity. I’m not saying you’re a liar,” she rushes to add. “Of course I’m not. It’s just…weird. You two seem so compatible.”

And at that he wants to scream a little bit.

“But I don’t know anything about the history between you two,” she concludes with a smile. “I don’t know one way or another. You’re both very talented though, and I don’t just mean with what you do online. He’s clearly a very creative person and you seem extremely intelligent. So I guess what I’m really meaning to say is thank you for sharing the content that you do. I hope both of you are happy, because it’s what you deserve.”

He watches as she and her daughter leave the room not five minutes later, turning that over in his head. When she’s out of sight he turns a hundred and eighty degrees and watches Freddie instead: black varnished nails curled elegantly around the stem of his champagne glass, the same discontented close-mouthed smile back in place, nodding at something one of the people clustered around him is saying.

He doesn’t know if he’s happy. He’s as happy as he can be, probably; distantly, he wonders if Freddie feels the same.

He can’t sleep.

It’s the wretched jet lag catching up with him. He knows that, just like he knows he shouldn’t have taken a nap in the late evening. It’s what screwed him over in the end. After he woke up he and Roger had spent half the night watching shitty American reality television in Brian’s hotel room, drinking hotel-provided red wine and donning fluffy white bathrobes. The wine had succeeded in knocking Roger out, at least; Brian has had no such luck.

At six in the morning he gives up.

He pulls on an old band tee shirt and his swim trunks, grabbing a towel before heading down to the hotel pool. It’s not quite dawn but not quite night; the sky is steely grey and pale yellow, the start of another glorious California day.

It’s not quite there yet, though. The world is holding its breath.

Water has always been calming to him, and today is no different. The minute he dives into the pool the cool pressure of it and the tickle of bubbles rushing up around him soothes him instantly, and when he surfaces to look up at the sky he takes his first real breath of the day. Venus is out, and he thinks he can see Jupiter, too. Light shines up from the pool lights, dreamy teal shapes drifting across the tiles.

He takes a breath and dives downward again, further and further until his chest scrapes the bottom. When he surfaces again he’s grinning, his curls flat and practically plastered against his face.

He promptly jumps out of his skin as he recognizes the shadow of a figure sitting on one of the chaises.

“Oh,” he gasps, and Freddie’s eyes go wide as he studies him from the darkness, still comfortably settled criss-cross against the fabric of the lounge, his hands resting on his knees. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were here or I never would have—”

“No, it’s alright, really. It’s not like I own the patio or—”

“You have ever right to your own solitude.”

“Brian, it’s okay. I don’t mind the company. It’s nice to have it.”

He snaps his mouth closed dumbly, still treading water, Freddie’s eyes still wide. Freddie isn’t wearing makeup for once—and why would he, at this hour?—and it makes him look somehow younger, simultaneously gentler and stronger in a way Brian can’t quite parse. His skin looks dreamy in the dappled, shifting light from the water. He looks just as soothing as the pool itself, and for a moment Brian wants to wander closer, sink into him and never leave.

“You look like a fish,” Freddie blurts, then blinks, seemingly dumbfounded by his own words.

“…Thanks?” Brian says slowly, kicking his legs out until he can breast-stroke lazily to the wall.

“Chlorine is horrible for your hair.”

“It’s saltwater,” Brian says, the taste bearing testament to that as he licks his lips, and Freddie’s cheeks darken.

“It’ll mess with your curls.”

Brian shrugs. “Are you here to give me hair advice?”

Freddie squeezes his eyes shut. “Sorry.”

“I don’t mind. You’re right, anyway.” When Freddie remains silent he frowns, hesitating for a long moment. “Are you alright?” he asks finally, his voice dropping even lower.

“I’m fine,” Freddie says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m fucking this all up.”

“Fucking what up?”

“Talking to you. Every time I try to talk to you I go and make an utter asshole of myself. I’m sorry for earlier today, in the elevator. I didn’t,” he starts, then huffs.

Brian feels his heart sink. He thinks about Freddie lunging forward to kiss him, his hands tangled in Brian’s hair. “You didn’t mean it?” he asks.

“Don’t sound so sad about it. I was horrible to you.”

“It was mutual,” Brian murmurs, resting his forearms on the side of the pool and propping his chin up on top of them.

Freddie looks at him and lets out a slightly deranged laugh. “Fuck,” he says. “Okay, darling. I’m starting over.”

“What?”

He gets off the chaise, coming forward to resume his pose in front of Brian, his fingernails tapping away at the deck. “I’m sorry,” he says plainly. “And I do mean that, I really do. I thought we were just teasing each other this whole time. I thought it was a joke, or maybe even some sort of grab for subscribers. I don’t know.”

“I still don’t get how people think that would get us subscribers,” Brian mutters.

Freddie smiles fondly, his eyes crinkling as he hides his mouth behind a hand, and Brian’s chest twists. “For someone with your subscriber count you’re really not the most YouTube savvy, are you, darling?”

Despite himself Brian huffs out a laugh.

“See? Teasing,” Freddie repeats, and then his smile fades. “I never meant to hurt you. I want you to know that.”

“Hurt me?” Brian asks with a frown. “I—Freddie, I thought I hurt _you_. I’ve been trying to figure out what happened. You just stopped posting all of a sudden, and I was hoping it wasn’t because of me. I didn’t think I’d mentioned you in anything the week before, but—”

“It was because I was so—ugh,” he huffs. “I’d been so blind, I didn’t realize what I was doing to you until then. I was horrible. I thought it was all a game but I was terrible, wasn’t I? I never gave you a break. Of course you were struggling with it.”

The pieces come together slowly. “Is this about my last video?” he asks slowly.

“Yes, of course it is,” Freddie says.

“You know that wasn’t about _you_ , right?”

Freddie blinks. “It—but you said that little things were just building up. Little comments. Of course that was me.”

“It was a lot of things. It all builds up.” His frown deepens. “Sometimes that just happens. I get sad. You do know I have depression, right?” He wracks his brain. He’s talked about it before. Freddie seems to know the fact that he’s studying solar dust by heart. Surely he also knows something as trivial as this.

Freddie huffs impatiently. “I know _that_. I’m just sorry for making it worse.”

“You didn’t make it worse. You’re not responsible. It just happens.”

“I certainly didn’t help!”

“Freddie,” he says steadily, “I’ve seen a thing or two in my life. If you really think that you can send me into a depressive spiral just by implying that I have a stick up my ass I really don’t know what to tell you.”

Freddie blinks at him.

“Let’s just settle this right now,” Brian says. “Truce, yeah? It’s getting a little out of hand, isn’t it? I never meant any of those things, not really.”

“I didn’t either,” Freddie replies softly, and Brian can’t stop himself from watching the way his soft lips form the words. “You know I didn’t. I respect you so much. I think you’re so strong and intelligent.”

Brian ducks his head to hide the heat in his cheeks. “You are too,” Brian murmurs, shaking his head when Freddie tries to protest. “No, you are. And I’ve seen your paintings on Instagram. I’ve heard your singing. You’re bloody talented, and I wish I had half the creativity you have.”

Freddie is smiling when he looks up, just a shy thing. He’s blindsided by his beauty for just about the fiftieth time that day. Freddie is beautiful done up in careful makeup, every thread on his body artfully placed as he smiles for cameras.

Freddie is _gorgeous_ in the morning light, wearing nothing but his wrinkled pajamas. Freddie is dazzling like this, quiet and gentle and blooming like a rose. Brian is more than familiar with his camera presence, but this is something new.

This is something wonderful and charming and intoxicating.

“A truce, then,” Freddie says, his voice lilting as he turns to Brian and smiles.

“Shall we shake on it?” Brian asks him, half-jokingly.

Freddie shakes his head with a tiny laugh, genuine and musical. “I have a better idea,” he murmurs.

Brian sees him coming this time, so he isn’t quite as startled by it. It doesn’t change the shock of the feel of Freddie’s lips against his own, warm and steady. He kisses him slowly this time, gentle and chaste like he’s sealing the deal, his hand cradling the base of Brian’s skull to keep him steady.

It’s such a simple thing, and it’s over far too soon. Brian chases his lips as he pulls away, and Freddie lets out a tiny sigh that might be a laugh. And then he’s sending Brian one last smile, and then he’s standing, and then he’s gone.

Brian hangs against the ledge for a long moment, watching Freddie disappear from sight. He hangs there for a minute longer, and then all at once he’s casting his gaze heavenward. He smiles up at the sky as his eyes land on Venus.

He takes a deep breath and pushes off the wall, allowing himself to sink all the way to the very bottom of the pool, bubbles rising up around him like Freddie’s soft laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written entirely to Sunseeker by The Naked and Famous. It’s 100% this chapter’s soundtrack. Please go listen! 
> 
> I’m blown away by your guys’ love and support! This was going to just be a short thing, but I think it’s going to end up being a little longer because I honestly can’t fit everything that I wanted to do into just three chapters. So it might end up being more like five or six? Please let me know what you think! I don’t want to bore anyone! You can also come talk to me on tumblr, which is also sweetestsight. 
> 
> Thanks so much you guys <3 stay healthy!


	4. Chapter 4

Freddie can’t sleep.

Every time he closes his eyes he hears Brian gasping in a breath through his nose—feels his hot lips against his own, his hands cradling Freddie’s face ever-so-gently, his hair soft and thick beneath Freddie’s fingers—and it’s really not helping him lull his mind into a state of calm.

Normally when he’s so wired that sleep is completely intangible, he goes to Brian’s channel and lets the soothing cadence of his voice quiet his brain. That obviously isn’t an option here.

Around three in the morning he considers just jamming a hand down his shorts and calling it a day. Somehow it feels like a breach of trust.

So he just lays there like an absolute tool, staring at the ceiling until the sun begins peaking above the horizon, and when it finally feels like an almost-reasonable time to go bother his best friend about it he rolls out of bed, gives himself a once-over in the mirror before deciding that throwing makeup on this early in the day is both pointless and overrated, and stomps out into the hallway.

John’s room is just a few doors down from his, and he doesn’t hesitate before whipping out his spare key and swiping himself in.

“John,” he whines into the dim space. “I’m having a crisis. Wake up, I need your help!”

A grunt resonates from the general direction of the bed.

“Oh, don’t complain,” Freddie gripes. “It’s not even that early. Besides, consider this payback for the time with the croissants, alright?”

He pulls the curtains open, resting his hands on his hips as he turns toward the direction of the bed. A messy head of chestnut hair emerges from the sheets, John rubbing a tired hand over his face before pulling it abruptly away and looking at Freddie with wide, panicked eyes.

And then a second head of hair unearths itself from the crook of John’s neck, this one bottle-blond.

Freddie gapes. “What…”

“Freddie,” John says lowly, “I’d first like to remind you that if you don’t want to see certain things then you shouldn’t—”

“ _Roger Taylor?!”_

Roger smacks his lips obnoxiously, eyes still closed. “Yeah?” he grumbles.

“You—that’s…” Freddie trails off, gesturing between the two of them. John just raises his eyebrows, unimpressed. “But he’s—he’s—”

“Very charming?” John tries, wrapping an arm around Roger protectively. “Hilarious? Stunningly gorgeous? Socially conscious and secretly a genius?”

Roger coos, his voice still sleep-rough and hushed, and presses his face back into John’s neck. “Oh, you,” he murmurs, laughter in his voice, and John grins.

“He’s _Brian May’s roommate,”_ Freddie hisses.

Roger pulls back to look at John. “I didn’t know that. Did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t know that,” John says, craning his head to look down at him, eyes glittering as he tries not to laugh. “You’re Brian May’s roommate?”

“Apparently I’m Brian May’s roommate.”

“Oh. Well, I live with Freddie Mercury, you know.”

“Do you? How quaint.”

“Rather.”

“Rather.”

“Rather.”

“Ra—”

“Guys!” Freddie snaps.

John huffs, rolling his eyes even as he grins. “It’s not a big deal, Fred,” he says. “What’s it matter? I like him and he likes me. Hell, you and Brian would probably get on famously if you just gave him the chance.”

And Freddie collapses backward onto the sofa, knees giving out, because ah, yes. There it is; the problem that brought him here.

Roger turns, frowning at him. He really is gorgeous, his eyes somehow more vibrant in real life, but more than that what endears Freddie to him immediately is the raw concern and worry written all over his face. He looks Freddie over carefully before rolling over, pecking the corner of John’s mouth. “I’ll order room service,” he says.

And that’s how, not twenty minutes later, he finds himself sitting on the cushioned bench at the foot of John’s bed while he and Roger face him, donning matching bathrobes, a virtual feast spread out between them all.

“It’s not that I _don’t like him_ ,” Freddie says, gesturing wildly with his danish. “That’s not even—ugg. It’s so complicated you wouldn’t believe, darlings.”

“I know you kissed him yesterday,” John says around a mouthful of croissant.

Freddie snorts on his next bite of pastry and Roger chokes on a melon ball.

“How’d you know that?” Freddie snaps.

Roger coughs violently, eyes streaming. John reaches over to pat him on the back calmly, but Roger slaps his hand away. “Nevermind _that_ ,” Roger says, turning to John. “You didn’t tell me?”

“Well, I wasn’t sure,” John tells him soothingly. “He just confirmed it, didn’t he?”

Freddie groans. “How’d you even know?”

“I ran into him. He had your favorite shade of lipstick smeared all over himself. I put two and two together.”

“Fuck’s sake.”

“What’s the big deal, anyway? I told you you’d get on, didn’t I? I always knew it.”

“That’s the problem! I can’t seem to stop kissing the guy!”

Roger chokes on another melon ball. “You kissed _twice?!_ ” he screeches.

Freddie winces. “Yes?”

“When?! You just met yesterday!”

“A few hours ago, by the pool,” Freddie says. “He said he wanted a truce, and he was just so lovely, you guys. His voice is so soft and gentle and his eyes are always so _sad_ that I just want to cuddle him and never let him go. Ugh, and when he smiles? Beautiful smile! Pointy teeth! Gorgeous! His hands,” he starts, and then immediately cuts that line of thought short. “His legs! Legs for days! And he was being so sweet, and he looked so happy when he was swimming.”

“He really likes swimming,” Roger says around his food. “Like, it’s basically impossible to remove him from a swimming pool once he’s in.”

“I could tell! He was practically glowing. He was looking up at the stars and smiling—you guys,” he whines, “he’s so pretty!”

“So what did you do?” John asks him.

“I told him he looked like a fish!” Freddie wails, letting his face flop down against his knees.

John snorts. “Okay,” he says slowly. “So aside from the fact that you apparently have no game whatsoever, I really don’t see the problem.”

“What, having no game whatsoever isn’t a problem?!”

“Doesn’t seem to be,” John says, shrugging. “It sounds like he likes you, Fred.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Freddie huffs immediately.

“What? He’s kissed you twice now and you don’t think he likes you?”

“I kissed _him_ twice, darling. There’s a difference. Besides, that doesn’t prove anything.”

“No,” Roger says quickly, “no, he definitely likes you, Freddie.”

Freddie frowns. “You can’t possibly know that.”

“I live with him.”

“ _He_ lives with _you_ and yet I doubt he knew about—” he gestures between John and Roger “—this!”

“He’s really fucking oblivious, though,” Roger says. “I love him dearly and he’s my best friend, and he’s genuinely one of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life, but when he’s wrapped up in his own thoughts he tends to not notice what’s going on around him. One time he was so stressed about an exam that he dumped an entire container of garlic powder into his coffee because he mistook it for the sugar. And then he just drank it,” he adds, eyes wide. “I was so horrified that I haven’t brought it up with him to this day.”

“Which brings me to my second point,” John says, nodding gratefully as if Freddie still isn’t reeling over what Roger just said, “which is that he probably hasn’t noticed us _because_ he’s so caught up in you.”

“He is not caught up in me!” Freddie protests.

“Freddie, he has you on noto,” Roger says flatly. “He set the ringtone as that jaunty little piano riff. Literally the minute you come out with a new video he sits down and watches it.”

“Plenty of people do that. Hell, I do that with his videos!”

Roger and John exchange a long look.

Freddie huffs into the mounting silence. “That doesn’t mean anything and you know it.”

“That means everything,” John says. “The fact that we’re even having this conversation means everything.”

“And what exactly does it mean?” Freddie snaps.

“That you’re obsessed with him! That he’s obsessed with you right back, and that maybe, _just maybe,_ you should get your acts together and talk about it for once!” John snaps back.

Neither of them break eye contact, both huffing angrily and utterly unwilling to concede their sides.

They’re interrupted by a knock at the door.

“John Deacon?” a gentle—albeit perplexed—voice calls, muffled through the wood. “I’m looking for a Roger Taylor. I was wondering if you’ve seen him?”

“Shit,” Roger hisses. “That’s Brian.”

John pauses, his coffee cup a mere inch from his lips. “So?”

“So he doesn’t know we’re,” Roger starts, then gestures lewdly between the two of them frantically enough that it jostles John on the mattress.

John just grunts sadly as a few drops of his coffee spill over. “What’s the point of hiding it?” John asks, reaching for a napkin. “Freddie knows.”

The knock sounds again.

“Do we answer it, or—”

“I’m not answering,” Roger says quickly.

“What? You want to just leave him out there?”

“Well…no, it’s just—”

“You two,” Freddie tuts, standing quickly. He crosses the room to the door, coffee still in hand, and drags the door open.

Brian stands in the hallway, eyes wide and fist raised as if he was about to knock again.

He seems somehow dumbfounded by the sight of Freddie, his eyes searching Freddie’s face rapidly. Freddie licks his lips, trying to gather together any sort of reasonable thought, but any clear thinking he would’ve been capable of is utterly decimated by the bright blush that rises rapidly to Brian’s cheeks. His eyes flick down to Freddie’s lips and then back up just as fast, and Freddie has never wanted to kiss another human being so badly in his entire life.

Brian looks warily behind Freddie into the hotel room. “Uh,” he says, his voice as gentle as always and his posture suddenly curled inward as if he’s trying to appear small. “Sorry, I was just looking for my roommate. I didn’t think I’d find you here.”

“Yes, well,” Freddie says, concisely, and then immediately wants to slap himself. “I mean, John and I are friends, and…”

“I know,” Brian says quickly. “I didn’t mean that it’s a bad thing. Just unexpected.”

“Not a bad thing?”

“I don’t mind seeing you,” Brian says softly. “I like seeing you.”

And Freddie is strongly considering throwing himself off of John’s hotel balcony, because he’s pretty sure he could fly.

“Freddie, are you going to let him in, or have you two murder each other yet?” John calls.

“Sorry. Come in,” Freddie says quickly. “Have you eaten? We ordered enough food to kill a horse.”

“I can’t stay for long,” Brian says. “I just came to check in with him. I’ve got a panel in half an hour.”

“Well, come eat something first,” Freddie replies, ushering him inside. “Besides, you’ll need all the energy you can get for something like that.”

“What? You’re not looking forward to your panels?”

“Hanging out with James Charles and Jeffree Star?” Freddie asks wryly. “No.”

“You have it easy,” John says as he walks past the bathroom to the main room of the suite, Brian in tow. “Roger’s got to hang out with pewdiepie.”

“I thought he’s more your genre, John.”

“No, I think I fall in with the shitposters.”

“He gets to spend all afternoon with Jenna Marbles,” Roger mutters. “Lucky git.”

Brian stalls in the doorway as he enters the room, looking rapidly between John and Roger. John takes a calm sip of his coffee, Roger just blinking back at his friend all the while. Brian looks to Freddie, confused, and then back again.

“So that’s why you were on our floor yesterday, then?” he finally asks.

John just nods.

“You just wanted me to wingman for you the other day,” Brian realizes, turning to Roger. “You kept me up late, you bastard.”

“I kept you up until ten, you nerd.”

“And you,” Brian says finally, turning to Freddie. “You knew?”

Freddie winces. “Well, not officially,” he says hesitantly. “It wasn’t really much of a stretch, though. They’ve been talking for a while now. Roger married him on Skyrim. And John does this thing when he likes someone where he just kind of refuses to acknowledge them or bring them up in day-to-day conversation unless they’re already brought up, in which case he references them exclusively by pet names—”

“I do not,” John says quickly.

“You literally referred to him as your baby not two days ago,” Freddie says, and feels oddly satisfied when a blush rises to John’s cheeks.

“You call me baby to your friends?” Roger teases. “Ew, that’s embarrassing.”

John raises his eyebrows at him. “I seem to recall you literally screaming it not two hours ago, so I’m not really sure you have room to talk.”

“Well yeah, but that was under duress.”

John laughs. “Is that what you call my—”

“Jesus,” Freddie says loudly. “Okay! Great, that’s more than enough of that!”

“Have they been this bad the whole time?” Brian asks, looking slightly green.

Freddie nods solemnly. “Yes, and I hate them. Here. Have a Danish.”

Brian sighs glumly and takes a sad bite of pastry. Freddie isn’t quite sure how he manages to make the motion look so tragic, but somehow he manages. The next moment he’s humming in surprise as he chews, looking down at the thing with a lot more interest than he had before as his eyes widen at the taste.

Freddie really can’t help but swoon a little at that. Sue him. He’s adorable.

They settle at the foot of John’s bed once more, Freddie silently offering Brian the last empty mug and then filling it for him, and if he side-eyes Brian to make sure he’s not adding garlic powder to it by mistake somehow, well, that’s just Roger’s fault.

Brian doesn’t. He all but drowns the taste in mass quantities of cream and sugar instead, stirring it in carefully. “So do we all have panels today, then?” he asks as he does.

“They’re staggered out I think, but yeah,” Roger offers. He grabs his phone off the bedside table and flicks carefully through it. “I’ve got some sort of meet and greet thing later this afternoon.”

“I had mine yesterday,” Freddie offers. “Brian, too.”

“Yeah?” John asks him. “Did you see each other?”

“Mmh,” Freddie hums drlyly. “We have mutual fans, as it turns out.”

“I’m not really sure how,” Brian says. “Or how an eight-year-old finds anything entertaining in my channel in the first place, for that matter.”

“Your channel is plenty entertaining,” Freddie says. “Besides, she said she wanted to go into science. You probably inspired her to do it, you know.”

Brian opens his mouth and then closes it, apparently at a loss for words.

“So some kid is a fan of the two of you?” Roger asks, bemused. “How’s that even happen? I thought your fans are rather factionalized.”

“Factionalized,” John snorts.

“What? It’s a word?”

“I know, it’s just, who the fuck says ‘factionalized’ in—”

“Yes,” Freddie. “And yeah, they are kind of factionalized, actually. She didn’t really seem to care about that, though. She’s probably too young to. I can’t speak for her mother.” And then he thinks back on the encounter, and he turns to Brian. “She said something to you at the end, didn’t she?” he asks him.

Brian’s eyes widen. “Yes, we talked.”

“What about?”

Brian sputters in a _very_ interesting way. “Uh,” he says. “She said she liked our channels.”

“Well, I got that,” Freddie says slowly. “What else?”

“She thinks I’m very intelligent and that you’re quite creative.”

“Is that all?”

Brian nods quickly, taking a bite of Danish.

He’s blatantly lying, but Freddie doesn’t push it. “She’s right, anyway,” he says. “You’re very smart.”

Brian chokes.

“Shit,” Roger huffs, still scrolling through his phone.

“What is it? John asks.

“Fuck. I’ve got an event in ten minutes. I completely forgot.”

“What event?”

“Some sort of welcome banquet,” he says, then groans. He leans over and kisses John soundly on the lips, John’s hands hovering in the air in surprise as his eyes flutter closed, his eyebrows shooting up. It lasts just a few seconds, but when Roger pulls away John is looking back at him hazily. “I’ll come meet you just before lunch.”

“M’kay,” John breathes.

“Chinese? I’ll buy you crab rangoon.”

“Great.”

“Can we meet in the lobby? Just before noon?”

“Alright.”

“Great. It’s a date,” Roger says, winking. He presses one more peck to John’s lips before sliding out of bed and heading into the bathroom, shutting the door behind himself.

Freddie grins as John watches him leave, tracing his fingers along the ceramic of his mug thoughtfully. “Why, Deaky,” he says, “if I’d have known all it takes to shut you up is a good smooch I’d have laid one on you years ago.”

John’s expression immediately darkens. “If you kiss me I’ll bite your tongue off.”

“Promises, promises,” Freddie mutters.

John just rolls his eyes, making to head to the bathroom.

“Really? With us in the room?”

“Relax,” John says with a shit-eating grin. “It takes us a hell of a lot longer than ten minutes.”

“Ew,” Brian says succinctly.

And then the door shuts, and the two of them are left alone.

Freddie sips awkwardly at his coffee. Brian plays with his own hair, fluffing it slightly and fiddling with the ends. It’s going to make his curls go flat if he isn’t careful, and Freddie turns to watch him do it. The motion is a little hypnotizing: pretty, dark chocolate curls twisting back and forth around his fingers—fingers that Freddie has watched tap along cardboard and stroke down microphones countless times.

He’s a little obsessed with Brian’s hands, and he’s not quite afraid to admit that. His fingers are ridiculously long, his motions always deliberately careful. Freddie has watched them flutter across camera lenses and around microphones enough times that the shiver he gets at the sight of them is practically Pavlovian, and now is no different. Distantly he wonders whether it’s a trained response, or whether it’s the thought of what it would feel like to have them running over his own skin that has an odd dizzy feeling starting in the back of his head.

And then Brian tugs one curl slightly before moving it over his shoulder, and Freddie’s breath catches in his throat.

“What?” Brian asks him, startled.

He has a lovebite.

Freddie spends all of one second trying to quell the jealousy mounting in his chest before he realizes that he himself left it there the day before in the elevator—dear god, the _elevator_ , Brian pressing him firmly against the wall and gasping when Freddie bit at his neck, so responsive and sensitive and absolutely perfect—and that just sends a completely different curl of heat through his gut.

He left a love bite on Brian’s neck.

“You have a, uh,” Freddie says weakly, gesturing to his own neck.

Brian frowns at him for a long moment before his eyes go wide, his hand reaching up to cup the mark. “Shit,” he hisses. “I completely forgot to cover it up. I don’t think I have time to go back upstairs, either.”

Freddie gathers his wits about him in record speed, forcing on a genuine Freddie Mercury-certified smile. “Not to worry, dear!” he says brightly. “It’s fortunate that you’ve got one of the best makeup artists around at your disposal, isn’t it?”

Brian blanches. “You don’t—I mean,” he starts. “Obviously I’d be more than grateful, but you don’t have any—”

“John’s got some,” Freddie says, getting up and digging quickly through John’s dresser. He only has to look for a moment before unearthing John’s familiar canvas makeup bag. “He only ever wears concealer, but that’s all we need anyway, isn’t it?”

“You don’t have to,” Brian says weakly.

“Nonsense. Of course I do,” Freddie replies. He opens two of the little jars he finds inside, dabbing a little of each on the back of his hand and blending them together. “Afterall, I was the one who put it there, wasn’t I?”

Brian’s cheeks heat at that, and Freddie’s heart beats a little faster at the sight of him. He pulls his hair carefully to one side, tilting his head to give Freddie more room. “I thought you don’t condone mixing products,” he says nervously.

“I don’t,” Freddie says with a smile. “Look at you. You do pay attention, don’t you? John tends to carry multiple products because his skin tone is prone to changing based on the temperature, which is unfortunate for him. Lucky for you, though, because if we blend these two we can just about get the perfect shade for you.”

Brian blinks rapidly, watching Freddie blend the two products with the tip of his finger. “You really are very talented,” he says softly.

Freddie stills. “Thank you,” he says finally, softly. “You are, too.”

“I mean it, Freddie,” Brian says insistently. “I can just tell in the way that you do things that you know what you’re doing. It’s comforting. Or not comforting per se, but…”

“What?” he breathes.

“Soothing,” Brian tries. “Calming. It’s nice.”

Freddie huffs out a laugh. He gathers product onto his finger before leaning forward into Brian’s space and dabbing it carefully onto his neck, covering the mark of his own teeth with each gentle moment. Brian gasps, and he winces. “Sorry,” he murmurs. “I know it’s cold.”

“It’s not,” Brian says quietly, blushing again. “I’m just sensitive.”

The feeling of Brian squirming against him rises back into his head: the feeling of his skin under Freddie’s lips and the delirious pleasure of Brian’s hips rocking into his own. He has the sudden urge to put the makeup to the side and seal his lips over the mark instead to discover just how dark he can make it—how much he can make Brian squirm and whine and moan. He quells the thought viciously.

“You’re one to talk about calming, anyway,” he says brightly. “That means a lot, coming from you.”

Brian huffs a laugh. “I thought you just watched my channel to gather insults.”

“Who said that?” Freddie replies.

“You find it soothing, then?”

Freddie takes his time answering, dabbing on the last bit of product to make sure the love bite is completely covered. He brushes his thumb over it a few last times, and then across Brian’s Adam’s apple lightly just to see him shiver. “I couldn’t sleep without it for a while,” he confides finally. “Would that be weird to say?”

Brian shakes his head gently. “People have said so before. It’s not uncommon. People can get addicted to ASMR, in a way.”

“It’s mesmerizing,” Freddie says. “Yours especially. You do it so well.”

“Yeah?” Brian asks, flashing his pointy incisors as he grins teasingly, his voice dropping rapidly into what Freddie has come to know as his ASMR cadence. “You like it that much?”

He blinks rapidly, doing his best to pull himself out of the inviting warmth of Brian’s eyes. “Yeah,” he says simply.

“I’m honored,” Brian continues in that same voice, still grinning as he leans forward until his lips are practically brushing Freddie’s ear. “You’re so good at what you do, you know, Freddie. You do such a good job.”

Electricity races instantly up his spine. “You have way too much power, you know,” he says.

Brian laughs as he pulls away, breaking the atmosphere just like that. “Thank you for helping me,” he says. “It means a lot.”

“Of course,” Freddie replies. “It was the least I could do. You should get going, though. You’re going to be late if you hang around here any longer.”

“Alright, then,” Brian says. He hesitates for a long moment, studying Freddie’s face. He leans toward him, and Freddie gasps as he does; but Brian hesitates at the last second before redirecting, pressing a light kiss to his cheek instead. “Thank you, Freddie,” he says again, and then he stands up and walks out.

Head still spinning, his ear still tingling from the touch of Brian’s lips and his cheek heating as he cups a hand over the spot where Brian kissed him, Freddie watches him go. It’s only once Brian is gone that he allows himself to let out a dreamy sigh.

He isn’t sure what it is within him that has him putting off going down to his own panel a little early in order to meet with the other creators. Some blend of social anxiety, laziness and a sort of holier-than-thou self-righteousness that he’s picked up over the years from being labelled the ‘unproblematic one’ in the YouTube beauty category, no doubt. When he finally does go down he’s practically late, only barely managing to slide onstage before the event starts.

His mind is more than occupied with other things, and he knows that it’s showing. He answers questions to the best of his ability and doesn’t hover on any particular topic in particular, letting the others answer anything that isn’t directed at him specifically rather than squabble over airtime.

“This is a question for Freddie,” a young man says from the microphone set up in the isle, and Freddie sits forward in his seat.

“Yes, hello,” he says into his own mic. “What’s your name?”

“Jared,” the boy says with a bright smile. “First off, I love your accent.”

“Thank you so much, darling. It’s completely fake. I’m actually from Fresno.” The boy laughs, and Freddie smiles. “What was it you wanted to know?”

“It’s not quite related to beauty,” Jared says. “I’d say it’s more personal really, so you can choose not to answer. Your ongoing feud with Brian May has brought him out of obscurity and into the spotlight. Now that he’s here in LA you two seem an awful lot closer than anyone originally would have thought. My questions for you are how did you meet, and are things really as tense between the two of you as your channels make them appear?”

Freddie laughs lightly, stalling for time as he wracks his brain for an appropriate answer. He doesn’t want to make it seem like it was all made up; it _wasn’t_ , for all intents and purposes. It was a misunderstanding, maybe, but it was much more than just a grab for subscribers. “Well, were I to answer I’d first of all have to refute your claim that he was obscure. He was already quite famous when we first started taking swings at each other, so to speak. I think he must have been at around five hundred thousand at the time.”

“Six-eighty!” someone shouts from the crowd.

Freddie laughs. “Alright, so we’ve got a close follower there. Six-eighty. Thank you. Brian’s always been more multi-genre than just specific to one thing, and quite honestly he’s a very talented man in a variety of areas. His rise in subscribers was only a matter of time, and it’s certainly not something I could claim to be responsible for.” He pauses, licking his lips. “I’m sorry, Jared darling. I’ve forgotten what your questions were.”

“I was wondering how you met and whether things were really that tense.”

“Right, yes. Sorry. I can certainly say things are quite tense between us.” His mind jumps to the image of Brian’s throat bobbing beneath his thumb as he swallows hard, his breath catching slightly as Freddie rubs his fingertip over the bruise on his neck. “Very tense. As for how we met, I’m not really sure how to answer that.”

“You met in London, right?” Jared asks.

“No,” Freddie says, shaking his head slowly.

“But you seem like you hate each other so much. Surely you must have met before now?”

“We don’t hate each other. And we met for the first time yesterday, in an elevator.”

Jared frowns, blinking at him in confusion.

“That’s all the time we have for that,” the moderator says breezily. “Next question?”

The rest of the panel goes by blessedly quickly, with Freddie easily giving non-answers for any questions not pertaining directly to his channel and all the others fighting to take up as much of the limelight as they can. When it’s finally over he breathes a sigh of relief, slipping immediately off the stage and digging around in his jacket until he unearths his sunglasses. He slips them on in the lobby, tying his distinctive hair up into a ponytail, and by the time he leaves the hotel he considers himself to be suitably disguised.

He finds a place at a coffee shop not too far down the way, settling outside with an almond mocha. It’s only then that he checks his phone. He flips through a few tweets about the con on twitter followed by a long string of narrations of the panel.

When he reaches a video clip of Brian’s own panel from earlier that moment he pauses.

The audio is a little fuzzy, but he can still make out the sweet cadence of Brian’s voice. “No,” he’s murmuring into the mic. “No, I would actually say that he has a very calming presence. I told him that just this morning, in fact. He’s very soothing—very relaxing to be around.”

Freddie winces as he scrolls through the comments.

**ginger** @spicyladdie01 · Jun 17 2020

@baecury 👀 #Maycury #Vidcon20

 **Chuck Wilson** @chucklesmuckles · Jun 17 2020

@baecury wtf does he mean tho. how early in the morning are they together wtf did they wake up together

 **Layla** @l.henders2 · Jun 17 2020

@baecury So Freddie says there’s still tension between them, but Brian says Freddie has a soothing presence? Okay… #Vidcon20

 **need me that serotonin** @lucy512 · Jun 17 2020

@baecury BRIAN WHAT THE FUCK DOES THIS MEAN #Maycury #Vidcon20

 **deaky stannie** @cheese.toast.4 · Jun 17 2020

@baecury Soooo they slept together right? #Maycury #Vidcon20

He sighs. He’s about to compose a tweet of his own to take a desperate stab at damage control when something else stops him.

It’s just a picture of Brian from earlier that morning, likely taken by a fan at some sort of meet and greet. It’s candid, at just the perfect angle to show the sharpness of his chin below the soft cloud of his hair, and he’s smiling as he talks to someone. His eyes are bright and kind, his smile small but still showing a hint of his sharp teeth.

There’s absolutely nothing special about it. It’s not particularly well-shot, the coloring and lighting are nothing special—hell, it’s blurry. Brian isn’t _doing_ anything, and yet Freddie still pauses when he sees it, his heart pounding in his chest. It’s not the simple slow burn of arousal; no, this is something much worse. The longer he looks at it, the harder it is not to smile down at his phone, and it draws him up short.

He likes him. For a moment he isn’t sure what’s worse: the fact that John was right all along, or the realization that he has a crush—a _crush—_ on Brian May.

He is so utterly fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This hasn't been proofread. We die like men. Let me know if you see any glaring errors! 
> 
> I think I'll be back with an update for this on schedule next Thursday. I've got something coming out during the weekend that I'm really, really excited about as well, so you'll be seeing a lot of me this week! Thanks for all of your support, and as always I love to hear from you guys. Loved this? Hated it? Let me know!


	5. Chapter 5

**US Weekly** @usweekly · Jun 17 2020

Day 2 of #Vidcon20 and the hashtags are already flying. Want to know what all the #Dealor is all about? Click here to (read more) !!

Below the tweet is a somewhat blurry photo of Roger and John. Roger’s elbow is resting on John’s shoulder, Raybans hiding his eyes as he turns away from the camera as if it isn’t worth his time of day. John is wearing a pair of sunglasses that Brian recognizes as Roger’s spares. His hand is tucked none-too-subtly into the back pocket of Roger’s ripped white skinny jeans.

He sighs.

The day has gone by slowly. With his friend (three friends?) all tied up in their respective panels he’s been a little bored, and a bit too scared of the horrors beyond his hotel room to do much about it.

Why the good people who organize VidCon had thought it would be a good idea to invite ASMRtists in the first place, he isn’t quite sure. They aren’t exactly the most social bunch.

That’s why he’s found himself at the same coffee shop that he’d seen Roger at the day before, proverbially twiddling his thumbs as he wiles away the hours—or rather, as he glues himself firmly into his seat and the phone in his hand and refuses to move. And why he’s stumbled across the tweet in question.

It’s not that he doesn’t support Roger and John.

He really, truly believes they’re good together—or they’ll end up being good together at least, since they really haven’t exactly been together all that long. And why they’d never met up while the four of them were in London is another question that he isn’t quite sure how to answer.

The thought crosses his mind that they might’ve met up and just not told him about it.

Because that’s the thing. He thought Roger would feel comfortable enough to tell him about something like that. Roger wasn’t subtle with it, sure—and Brian sees that now—but that doesn’t change the fact that he could’ve been a little more forthcoming.

He’s not mad, he’s just a little hurt.

And what makes matters worse is the fact that Roger really doesn’t seem to care who knows about his—hookup? Lover? Boyfriend?—and who doesn’t. No, he wouldn’t tell his own best friend about it, but he’s apparently more than comfortable to flaunt it like a sixteen year old who’s going steady for the first time. He’s apparently comfortable enough that photos like this are floating around, and that US Weekly of all people can pick up on it.

Brian huffs.

He scrolls away from the offending photo quickly, skimming a few tweets about the con instead. He comes across a video clip of Freddie’s panel, likely recorded and uploaded in live-time judging by the time stamp, and doesn’t hesitate before hitting the play button.

“I can certainly say things are quite tense between us,” Freddie says into the mic, his voice smooth and rhythmic and soothing, and Brian doesn’t exactly have to use his imagination to know who he’s talking about. “Very tense.”

Brian frowns. He didn’t think things were that tense. He thought they were getting along much better, actually.

“As for how we met,” Freddie continues, “I’m not really sure how to answer that.”

“You met in London, right?” someone asks from the audience.

“No,” Freddie answers, looking perplexed. Next to him one of the other panelists is checking her nails in boredom.

“But you seem like you hate each other so much,” the audience member insists. Brian’s frown deepens. “Surely you must have met before now.”

“We don’t hate each other. And we met for the first time yesterday, in an elevator.”

A long string of retweets and comments follows the clip. Brian doesn’t bother to read them, too busy replaying Freddie’s words in his head.

They really don’t hate each other. Brian doesn’t hate him, at least, and he’s growing more and more certain that Freddie doesn’t hate him, either. Freddie might think that things between him and Brian are tense and that every second he spends in Brian’s company is strained—and really, that’s just making Brian second guess every single interaction they’ve had since their arrivals in Los Angeles—but Freddie doesn’t hate him.

He at least has that.

He’d tried to say only kind words about Freddie in his own panel earlier that morning. Half of the questions that people asked him had truly baffled him, and being able to talk about whatever he and Freddie have—or don’t have, as the case may be—between them had been something of a relief.

He has no idea how to tell people that he can’t tell them what the secret to success is for YouTube fame simply because he doesn’t _know_ it.

Fortunately people seemed to catch onto that rather quickly. He could only stumble through so many answers about how he doesn’t consider himself to be part of a specific category and that he has no idea what a subscriber to view ratio is, let alone whether his own is any good, before people caught on and stopped asking him things like that. Instead he’d been asked almost exclusively about Freddie, with the odd question about Roger thrown in here or there.

He’s pretty sure Gibi, who’d been seated to his left and kept giving him smiles that ranged between sympathetic and endeared, thinks he’s a certified moron. But that’s beside the point.

The point is he’s tired.

He wants to go swimming. It’s too hot out and he knows the coolness of the water would clear his head. There would be nothing better than diving into the deep end, pushing all the air out of his lungs and sinking straight to the bottom, the cool pressure of it pressing in on him, comforting and smooth. He’d thought about going down once his panel ended, but one glance through the window had confirmed what he’d already guessed: the place was packed with loud teenagers and budding influencers, all of them seated in the chaises around the water’s edge, not one of them actually going into it.

And that’s really not an atmosphere that he feels the need to be a part of.

“Hey, guy,” someone says.

He looks up and is met with a tired-looking barista, his brown hair shaggy and just brushing his shoulders and his rather sharp jawline set in a firm frown. He snaps impatiently when Brian blinks up at him, confused.

“You want another one or what?”

“What?” Brian asks, confused.

“Do you want another one? You don’t need to, I just figured I’d ask since you’ve been sitting here having a nervous breakdown for the last hour.”

“No,” Brian says quickly, then thinks about it. “Yes.” Then he frowns. “I’m not having a nervous breakdown.”

The man just raises his eyebrows. “Convincing. No or yes?”

“Yes, please,” he says, blinking. “Uh…”

“What?”

“You’re British?”

His eyebrows rise even further. “Yes…?”

“Sorry. It’s just nice to hear a familiar voice.”

The guy softens slightly, letting his hand rest on Brian’s table. “Listen, mate, are you alright?”

“Fine, yeah,” Brian says. “It’s just been a weird week.”

“Why are you out here by yourself? Where’s your friend?”

“Who?”

“The cute one. You _are_ friends, right? Weird to see two foreigners hanging out here by themselves if they’re not friends.”

“You and I aren’t friends,” Brian points out. “Who do you mean? Roger?”

The guy rolls his eyes. “I don’t know his _name_ , now do I? The blond one.”

“Yeah, that’s him,” Brian says. “He’s on a date right now.”

The guy swears under his breath.

“I’ll be fine, anyway,” Brian says quickly. “I’ve got other people I can go talk to.” Or one, rather. That one person being his sworn internet nemesis who he’s now kissed three times.

“You here for the convention or something?”

“Yeah.”

The guy raises his eyebrows, heading back to the counter. “Good luck with that.”

Brian just shakes his head.

He takes his next mocha to go, slipping his sunglasses on and wandering down the pier as he thinks about nothing in particular. He needs to while away the afternoon somehow, a task that’s only becoming more difficult with no events on his horizon until later tonight. The entire convention is on pause for lunch, and no doubt all the conventiongoers will be hitting the street any minute in search of food, or simply for an adventure.

He’s not really looking forward to it, solemn recluse that he is.

He stops short on the sidewalk when he sees a familiar cherry hue shining through the paned glass of a shop window.

It’s a Les Paul. It’s a _stunning_ Les Paul in a pretty cherry sunburst, the pickups shining in the midday sun, the neck practically begging to be held. It’s a very, _very_ nice guitar.

Without hesitating he pushes the shop door open. All at once he knows exactly what he’s going to do with his afternoon.

He stays there for multiple hours, fiddling with different instruments and grounding himself in the press of strings against his fingertips. By the time he leaves the shop the skin is practically blistered, his calluses visibly raised and dry, and the unsettling buzz of stress in the back of his head has calmed.

He feels better.

By the time he’s walking back into the hotel he feels entirely at peace and ready to continue the afternoon. He has half a mind to go track down Roger just to check in with him and see how he’s doing—John too, if he’s around. He should make a point of getting to know the other man better, especially seeing as his own best friend holds him in such high regard.

Heads turn as he enters the lobby, and the gazes linger as he passes. He’s not quite used to being known like this. In London few people ever recognize him, and even fewer give him the time of day. It’s a little unnerving to be watched.

It’s unusual even in this setting. The hair on the back of his neck prickles.

Nonetheless he doesn’t let it get to him. He crosses the lobby to the elevator (the same elevator that he and Freddie met in, and he can’t quite look at it the same anymore), pushing the button to his floor and leaning back against the wall as the door closes. He pulls out his phone as it begins moving, flicking through twitter.

He promptly freezes.

It’s a photo of Freddie—it’s a photo of both of them. Brian is just barely in the frame behind Freddie’s shoulder, and Freddie is smiling at the camera as he walks quickly by but that doesn’t change the fact that his lipstick is undeniably smeared and his cheeks are flushed in a way that can’t quite be blamed on his delicately applied rouge. Slightly out of focus and just barely visible behind the closing elevator door, Brian is visible leaning against the wall.

Fuck.

He doesn’t bother reading the comments. He already knows what people will say, just like he knows there’s no point in engaging with it. In situations like this, perhaps the best thing to do is to claim ignorance.

He has a photo session later in the evening. It’s little more than a glorified meet and greet, and people blessedly don’t ask him about the picture. Perhaps it’s that they’re too cautious to ask him one-on-one, or maybe they just haven’t seen it yet. He doesn’t know, but either way he’s grateful.

They have questions about practically everything else.

“Are you having fun at the con?” one girl asks him, regarding him from behind orange Lennon glasses.

“Of course,” he lies easily. “So much fun you wouldn’t believe! It’s been a really great experience.”

“What’s it like being a featured creator?”

“A lot of hanging out with the others, mostly,” he says. “It’s a lot of waiting for events to start as well. It’s probably not as glamorous as you think, I’d imagine.”

The next photo-seeker, a boy, is wearing a shirt featuring the logo from Roger’s channel. Brian laughs quietly when he sees it.

“What’s Roger Taylor like?” the boy asks him.

And it goes on and on.

By the time it’s done he at least feels a little lighter, his mind having been successfully taken off of his worries. It doesn’t change the buzz of exhaustion in the back of his head, brought about by yet another night of poor sleep and another day full of convention activities.

He walks through the small ballroom they set aside for photos and out onto the second mezzanine. He doesn’t see Roger leaning against the wall as he walks through the doorway, but his friend makes his appearance soon enough as he pushes away from the surface to follow Brian to the railing.

The two of them lean against it in silence, looking down at the bustle of the lobby below.

“You okay?” Roger asks finally. “I saw the…you know.”

“Yeah,” Brian says.

Roger hums noncommittedly, pulling one of the familiar complimentary hotel chocolates out of his pocket and sliding it across the railing. Brian laughs when he sees it.

“Thanks,” he says, unwrapping it slowly and sighing when the flavor of dark chocolate and sea salt hits his tongue. “I’m alright, though. I swear I am. It’s a lot to think about, but it’s going to be alright, isn’t it?”

Even as he’s saying it two girls walking by them go silent suddenly, glancing at him with wide eyes before turning quickly away. Roger glares at them harshly, and Brian steps on his foot.

“Ow!”

“Don’t,” Brian says, turning to look back at the lobby. “They might not even know.”

“They probably know,” Roger says flatly. “It’s everywhere.”

“So are you and your better half,” Brian says flatly.

“I know,” Roger sighs.

“It made US Weekly,” Brian says.

“Daily Mail picked it up too, actually,” he says, his voice as casual as if he’s discussing the weather.

Brian huffs. “Do you not care at all?”

“Of course I care!” Roger yelps. “Obviously I do! Why are you so upset, anyway? It’s not like you to be bitter like this.”

“Bitter about what?” a voice says from behind them.

Brian practically chokes on the remains of his chocolate as he turns. Freddie is standing behind them, clad in some sort of yellow and black leather jacket that somehow doesn’t make him look like a bumble bee, his eyeshadow a delicately-blended palette of bronze and pink, and Brian hates him a little for being able to pull that whole ensemble off. Freddie licks his lips, his eyes zeroing in on Brian’s, and the world somehow begins turning more rapidly beneath his feet.

“It’s nothing, really,” Roger says. “Alright, Freddie?”

Freddie glances between the two of them rapidly. “Good, yeah,” he says slowly. “I was wondering if you’d seen John.”

Brian shakes his head, Roger tapping his fingers against the rail to an unknown rhythm. “He’d gone looking for you,” he says. “He wanted to take you to dinner.’

“He’s not taking you?” Freddie asks flatly.

Roger shakes his head, gesturing to Brian. “I’m taking him.”

“You are?” Brian asks.

“Mmh.”

“Things going alright, Brian?” Freddie asks him. “You look a little off.”

Another group of people passes, glancing at them curiously, and Brian can’t quite keep himself from flinching. “Fine, yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

Roger licks his lips. “Freddie, listen. Maybe you should go find John, alright?”

Freddie’s eyes flick over to him. He studies Roger’s face rapidly, the two of them holding eye contact for a long moment. Something on Roger’s face must tell him what’s going on, because he nods solemnly to himself and steps neatly out of their space.

“I’ll see you guys,” he says softly, and then he’s gone.

Brian lets out a slow breath. “Thanks,” he says softly.

Roger huffs. “Thanks for what?” he asks. “You know that there’s no proof anything’s going on between the two of you. There’s barely even any evidence. You don’t exactly need to keep a ten-meter radius in public.”

“Thanks anyway, then,” Brian says.

“Thank me later,” Roger tells him, pushing himself away from the rail and leaving Brian to follow him downstairs and through the lobby. “I’m buying you dinner. Some woman handed me twelve hundred dollars cash today.”

Brian frowns. “Why?”

“She wanted a kiss.”

“And you whored yourself out like that?”

“A _kiss,_ Brian,” Roger says, but he can’t quite stop his laugh.

“How’s John feel about that?”

“Ambivalent,” Roger says. His face falls into a frown. Brian expects him to say more, but he holds his silence through the lobby and out the revolving doors.

“Did you want him to be jealous? Brian asks finally.

Roger shoots him a look. “I wasn’t trying to make him jealous, if that’s what you mean.”

“It’s not,” Brian hurries to say, struggling for words. “I just mean—you know, would you rather that he be jealous?”

“Of course I would,” Roger mutters. “Here, down the street. Vietnamese?”

Brian nods distractedly. “Sounds good.”

“I would rather he be jealous than not care about it at all,” Roger continues. “I at least want some sort of reaction! He plays things so close to his chest sometimes.”

“Like you can really talk about playing things close to your chest,” Brian says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He signs. “It means you’re not the only thing who isn’t terribly forthcoming these days.”

Roger stares at him, mouth agape. “Is this about the fact that I didn’t tell you outright?”

“Outright?” Brian says. “Roger, you didn’t tell me at all.”

“You’re still stewing over this?”

“I’m not stewing.”

“You could’ve fooled me,” he snaps, though the harshness of his tone is undercut by the fact that he then politely holds the door open for Brian.

“I’m _not._ I’m just—thanks—I want to know why, Rog. Since when am I not privy to details about your life?”

Roger huffs, gathering his thoughts. “I thought you wouldn’t like it,” he says finally. “And really, I was right, wasn’t I? Neither you nor Freddie are happy about—”

“What’s Freddie got to do with it?”

“—And you’re such bloody hypocrites, anyway! You’re both running around making out in elevators, and yet you won’t even support the fact that his roommate and I are in a healthy sexual relationship!”

They’re interrupted by the hostess pointedly clearing her throat.

“Uh,” Roger says quickly. “Hi. Two?”

“Right this way,” she says breezily, still staring them down.

The moment they sit down in their booth, the low murmur of people eating and talking around them, Brian leans forward across the table. “You’re putting words in my mouth, now,” he says. “I never said I had a problem with you and John. Why would I?”

“Maybe because he’s your archnemesis’ best friend?” Roger says, though the heat is fading from his voice. “Hell, Freddie wasn’t exactly alright with it, either.”

Brian frowns. “He said that?”

“He said enough. ‘ _You’re sleeping with Roger Taylor? He’s Brian’s roommate!’”_ he says in a rather rude imitation of Freddie’s voice.

“When was this?”

“The morning we all ate breakfast together. I knew he wouldn’t like it, so it wasn’t exactly a shock.”

“But he knew beforehand,” Brian points out. “He said so himself.”

“I think he was hoping it wouldn’t be true,” Roger says glumly, scanning his menu.

Brian’s heart sinks. He hates to see Roger sad. He always has, and now is no different. His friend is usually such a loudly passionate person, and to see him down always makes him feel like something is missing in the world.

“Hey,” he says quietly, and waits until Roger looks at him. “I don’t care who you date as long as they make you happy. If you’re happy then I’m happy for you, no matter what. Alright?”

Roger’s lips quirk upward. “Is this you giving me your blessing?”

“Yeah, I guess it kind of is.”

“Thanks. It, uh. It means a lot, you know.” He pauses. “I don’t know if it’ll matter in the end, is all. I don’t know how long this is really going to last.”

“Why’s that?” Brian asks with a frown.

“I can’t tell if he likes me,” Roger says in an undertone.

Someone clears their throat from beside the table, and Brian practically jumps out of his skin. “Welcome to Pho-Koff,” a very bored, _very_ familiar voice says. “My name is Chris and I’ll be your server.”

Brian squints. “Aren’t you the barista? From the coffee shop?”

The guy frowns. “A Latte Fun?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Was the coffee shop A Latte Fun?”

“It was Mug Shot,” Roger says.

“Oh, I know you,” the guy says. “You’re the cute one.”

Roger straightens up, a smug smile stretching across his face. 

Brian rolls his eyes. “He’s still not single. Sorry.”

“Eh,” the guys says. “Need a few more minutes?”

“Sure,” Roger says. “We’re in the middle of something, is all.”

“Drinks?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Whatever.”

“Alright then.” He wanders away.

“Anyway,” Roger says, turning back to Brian and lowering his voice. “He’s honestly a catch. He’s really sweet, he’s kind, he’s funny, he’s good with kids, all his shirts fit me, and he’s incredible in bed.” He pushes on even as Brian grimaces. “I mean, _really_ good, you know? He’s hot as fuck. He thinks I’m hot as fuck, too.”

“You _are_ hot as fuck,” Brian points out, because honestly he’s lived with Roger long enough to be aware that this is just an objective fact.

“Thank you,” Roger says. “I know. The issue though is that he never really says anything beyond that. So he thinks I’m hot: that’s great, but what else?”

“You think he doesn’t like you for you?” Brian asks him. “It’s just surface level or something?”

“Yes,” Roger groans. “We have great chemistry and everything, but—god, what if that’s all?”

“Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding,” Brian offers. “You know about love languages and all that. Maybe you just need to talk about it.”

Roger sighs, forlorn. “You’re probably right,” he says quietly. “I just hope that it works out.”

Brian nods sympathetically. “I hope so, too.”

“I _really_ like him, Brian,” he says. “I mean, I haven’t liked someone this much this fast in ages. Not since Debbie, I don’t think.”

“Maybe that’s the issue. You’re moving so fast that you haven’t really had time to talk about what you want out of this. I mean, he seems like he really likes you,” he adds, thinking back to the way John had immediately softened when Roger had kissed him in John’s hotel room.

Roger brightens. “You think so?”

“I haven’t exactly talked to him about it,” Brian offers, “but yeah. It seems that way. I think you should talk to him and see if he wants the same things you do. Chances are he does.”

They’re interrupted yet again by the waiter plunking two glasses down on the table. One is a disturbing shade of green that Brian is almost certain would do some fairly interesting things under a black light. The other one is orange and features a lime slice fashioned into a tiny boat. The boat is on fire.

“These are our two most popular drinks, so you’ll both probably like at least one of them,” the guy announces boredly.

Roger sighs. “Thank you, Chris. Can I call you Chris?”

“It’s my name, so yeah.”

“If my boyfriend dumps me can I shack up with you?”

“You’re gonna dump him?” Chris asks, glaring at Brian.

“I’m not his boyfriend,” Brian says defensively.

“You’re cheating on your boyfriend?” Chris asks, turning on Roger.

“We’re not dating!” Roger says. “This right here is not a date!”

“Does your boyfriend know that?”

“He’s out with _his_ , uh…what’s Fred to you, Bri? Your fuckbuddy?”

“We’ve kissed twice, Roger,” Brian says flatly.

“You made out in an elevator. There’s a difference.”

Chris holds up his hands. “You know what? Forget it. I don’t want to know.”

They’re only mildly drunk when they stumble back down the street, their sorrows successfully drowned with massive bowls of noodles and large, brightly colored drinks. There’s some sort of convention event going late into the night—a ball of some kind for conventiongoers, though attendance for creators was optional—and he and Roger practically sprint past the door to the ballroom in a bid to get to the elevator banks without being seen.

It would probably help if they weren’t cackling all the while, but sometimes these things just happen.

The food and alcohol helps him doze off marvelously for the first time since he left London. For one blissful moment he can almost believe that he won’t be plagued with insomnia tonight—that he might get a full night’s sleep and a blessedly luxurious lie-in during his day off.

No such luck.

He finds himself once again up before the sun, wide awake and staring at the ceiling. He’s not tired, and that at least is nice.

He just can’t go back to sleep.

He gives it all of ten minutes before he gets bored and swings his legs out of bed, walking into the bathroom and dragging on his still slightly damp swim trunks and a loose t-shirt. At least the pool is open all hours of the day. Hopefully it’ll be as empty as it has been every other morning.

He follows his path from the day before, grabbing a towel and padding down the carpeted hallway with silent bare feet. The world is still asleep, and it’s nice to exist in such silence. It soothes him in a way that nothing else could.

He pushes the door to the pool open, steps out onto the patio, and crashes into another body.

“Again?” Freddie says. “We’ve really got to stop meeting like this.”

“It’s your fault for taking my spot.”

“Just because we both have the same think-spot doesn’t mean I stole it from you,” Freddie says, but his eyes are playful.

His eyes are really pretty. His face is very close. He could kiss him so easily.

He doesn’t. “What brings you down here, then?”

Freddie shrugs, stepping out of Brian’s space and following him to the water’s edge. “You know,” he murmurs. “Typical stuff. Anxiety, social pressure, insecurity, insomnia, the strain of a long day being famous…”

Brian scoffs. “What do you have to be insecure about?” he asks.

Freddie just stares at him steadily, considering. Brian realizes somewhat distantly that he must straighten his hair in the mornings, or do something to get it to hang straight and fluffy. It’s curly this morning, falling more in fluffy waves than in tight ringlets like Brian’s own. It’s somehow endearing.

He doesn’t answer Brian’s question, settling down on the edge of one of the chaises as Brian lowers himself onto the edge of the pool, letting his calves sink into the water. He just looks Brian over before finally speaking.

“Don’t tell me I’m the only one facing strain from all this,” he says. “I know that you know what I’m talking about.”

Brian blinks up at him. “Strain?” he asks, thinking back to the curious glances following him through the lobby and the photo that’s circulating the internet as they speak. “You don’t mean about the…”

Freddie frowns. “The what?”

If he doesn’t know about it, Brian would be loathe to break the news to him and shatter his good mood. “Nothing,” he says quickly. “I’m facing strain, if that’s what you mean. Of course I am. I think we all are.”

“Not all of us,” Freddie muses. “A good number of the featured creators are marveling in it.”

“Not you and I,” Brian murmurs. “Not Roger. Not John.”

Freddie sighs. “No. No, I suppose you’re right. Goodness, I know it’s an honor, but I can hardly face another day of this.”

“They love you, Fred.”

“They do,” Freddie says. He looks out to the edge of the pool, the water falling away and the ocean stretching beyond it. “I’m sure they do. I just don’t think they actually know who they’re looking at.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean _me,_ ” Freddie says. “I mean that who I am isn’t the person they tune in to watch online. It’s not the person they see here. They think they know me and they think they’re privy to every detail of my life because of it, but they don’t realize that it’s all a lie. They don’t realize that not everything should be public information.”

Brian blinks, taking it all in. He knows enough about Freddie by now to know that the online presence is a far cry from the person who sits before him—the person who kisses him sweetly under the stars and who offers him danishes in the morning—the person who loves his best friend and who doesn’t like it when strangers glare at Brian in elevators.

He just didn’t ever consider that his fans wouldn’t know that, too—that Freddie’s fans wouldn’t consider that he’s still just a person.

“What events do you have tomorrow?” Freddie asks suddenly. “Or today, rather.”

“I’m not sure,” Brian says, bemused. “I think it’s rather—rather light, actually. Just a short group event in the afternoon and that sort of thing.”

Freddie nods solemnly at that. “Group photos?” he asks. “That’s what I’ve got.”

“Yes, I think that’s it,” Brian murmurs.

“Great,” Freddie says. “You’re skipping it.”

Brian frowns. “What?”

“You’re not going. We’re getting out of here.”

“We’re featured guests, Freddie,” Brian says. “We can’t just leave.”

“We can and we will,” Freddie says. “We both went out for lunch together today—”

“No we didn’t!”

“—and got horrible food poisoning, can you believe it? That’s what we get for trying to socialize together.”

“Nobody is going to believe that,” Brian says, his voice faint. “Especially when someone recognizes us wandering around Los Angeles together!”

“Then they won’t recognize us,” Freddie says flatly. He stands. “I’m coming to get you at seven. Be ready and suitably disguised.”

Brian just stares at him as he walks away. “This is a terrible plan!” he shouts after him.

“Live a little, May,” Freddie calls over his shoulder. “It’s self-care. You’ll thank me later.”

Brian blinks after him as the door shuts. He turns back to the water, kicking his foot out to splash it through the starlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update is a little behind! Most of this week was devoted to finishing my arranged marriage au, which is now up. I'm very happy with the way it turned out, and if you haven't read it yet please go give it a read! 
> 
> Once again, a big thank you to all of you for your support. I'm pretty surprised at the reception this has gotten and it continues to brighten these self-isolated days! Now more than ever it's so, so nice to hear your thoughts <3 I hope you're all doing well, and I'll see you next week!


	6. Chapter 6

He has over 48 hours of video footage on his channel—48 hours of his face in high definition, every facet and pore on display as he brushes on products and talks about his life. People know what he looks like.

How can he go about hiding that?

He starts with his hair. He brushes it back carefully, holding it against his head as he pulls a beanie on over it. A few strands are tugged to the front only to be artfully brushed to the side, giving the impression that his hair is short-cropped beneath the fabric.

It’s only then that he turns to his face.

He has a zit breaking out on his chin. He spends a long minute prodding at it before he gives up and reaches for the concealer. But no, the more makeup he’s wearing, the more recognizable he’ll be.

But he wants to look good. He wants Brian to think he looks good.

He mentally kicks himself. God.

He shakes his head and puts the bottle down. Without his signature sharp eyeliner and long lashes, without any sort of lipstick or eyeshadow, he looks just like anyone else. It’s especially noticeable among the brightly-painted faces of Los Angeles. He fades into the background this way.

He digs through his suitcase until he finds an ugly tourist shirt John had bought him in LAX as a joke, tugging it on. It takes a long moment of further digging before he finds his crowning jewel: a pair of glasses he’d brought just for this kind of occasion, wire-framed and UV-protected sunglasses that are otherwise clear and that he never wears casually because they make him look like a massive nerd. They’re ugly and grandma-looking and horrible.

They’re everything Freddie Mercury would try not to be. They’re everything Freddie Bulsara can hide behind.

He surveys himself one last time in the mirror, lingering on a dirty spot on his grey jeans and grimacing. He’s about to reach for the emergency stain removal when his phone buzzes.

**Belisha Beacon**

7:48

_hey bring verge up when you come_

7:48

_Virgo_

7:48

_VERVE fuckin piece of shit_

Freddie frowns. _Are you with Brian?_ he types rapidly.

7:49

_yes he needs verve_

Freddie rolls his eyes. He reaches for his makeup bag, digging out the familiar tube and stuffing it into his pocket. He takes one last look around the room before he leaves.

He can hear voices the second he steps out of the elevator, and when he rounds the corner it’s to see that both Brian and Roger’s doors are open. Roger’s room is still dark and all the sound seems to be coming from Brian’s instead. He walks warily to the doorway, pausing in the threshold.

Roger and John are hovering over Brian’s shoulders, both still in pajamas. Brian is…suitably disguised.

He’s combed his curls flat against his head, his hair twisted up into a tidy bun. He’s got a pair of distressed black jeans on and a plain white t-shirt. A black denim jacket covered in political buttons and band patches which Freddie vaguely recognizes as Roger’s completes the look. The jacket barely covers his wrists and the bottom of his ribcage, and Freddie finds it vaguely charming.

Freddie is used to seeing him neatly buttoned-down, college preppy and stylish—his mane of hair is the only thing that seems to break the mold. This is…not that.

“Wow,” Freddie breathes.

Brian turns at the sound of his voice, and _that_ just takes his breath away all over again. He’s got black eyeliner on, just heavy enough to make him look austere and dark and serious. Being on the receiving end of it sends a thrill through him, and he shivers.

“You think it’s enough?” Brian asks him quietly.

“It’s perfect. Just one thing to finish up the look,” Freddie breathes, shaking the feeling off quickly.

He strides over to Brian, tugging the tube out of his pocket and uncapping it. He takes Brian’s chin between the fingers of one hand, and Brian helpfully clasps his fists against his chest for Freddie to stabilize his elbow against. The color goes onto his mouth smoothly, a dark contrast against his fair skin.

“There,” he murmurs, grinning. “You look absolutely perfect.”

“Punk really suits you, Brian,” John says dryly, and when Freddie turns to smirk at him it’s to see him holding his phone aloft.

“Are you really filming this?” he asks flatly.

“Shut up. It’ll be a great tiktok.”

“You know the goal is for us _not_ to be recognized, right?” Freddie points out disapprovingly,

“I’ll post it tomorrow,” John says distractedly, still watching his phone screen.

Freddie rolls his eyes, taking Brian’s hand in his own without thinking about it and then starting when he feels Brian squeeze his fingers. “Let’s get going. John, Roger—enjoy your morning.”

“Oh, we will,” Roger says with a slow grin.

Freddie shakes his head as he drags Brian out of the room and toward the elevators.

LA is like a theme park.

Even this early the streets are busy, neon lights already flashing in buildings and cars packing the wide roads. He feels practically dizzy with the noise of it as they walk down the street away from the hotel.

“Ever been to the States before?” Freddie asks him.

Brian shakes his head. “Never. Not quite what I imagined, I have to say.”

“Me neither.” Freddie looks around warily. “I suppose we should call a lyft, shouldn’t we? Get away from the con a little? And then maybe we should find coffee or something.”

“Yeah,” Brian says. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

They end up away from the con.

They end up _far_ from the con.

The Santa Monica pier looks like something out of a dream. It’s a parody of Brighton but not quite the same, the smells and sounds in the air completely foreign.

“Bubble tea,” Brian says.

“What?”

“Bubble tea,” he repeats.

“You want some?”

“It’s caffeine.”

It technically is. He nods to himself as he lets Brian drag them toward the shop.

The walls are painted light blue and decorated with paintings of white bunnies jumping over clouds, of all things. Brian looks horribly out of place with his dark clothes and darker makeup, and Freddie has to hide a snort behind his hand.

Freddie’s drink is bright turquoise and topped with a yellowish foam. It tastes like the cotton candy cousin of honeydew melon. Brian stares at it with wide eyes as they leave the shop, and when Freddie offers him a sip Brian’s eyes widen at the taste. His cheeks hollow slightly as he drinks, and Freddie has to look away.

“What did you get?” Freddie asks him.

Brian hums. “It’s like a chocolate frappe type of thing. You want to try?”

It’s chocolate, alright. It’s sweet and rich and creamy and lovely. “You like chocolate a lot, don’t you?”

Brian shrugs. “It’s a comfort thing, I guess,” he says, his voice trailing off uncertainly. “It makes me happy.”

“Is that why Roger brought you some the other day?”

Brian nods slowly. “You noticed that?”

“I thought he was trying to woo you,” Freddie says, huffing out a laugh.

“Jealous?”

Freddie takes a sip of his tea, pointedly chewing on the boba. “No,” he says with his mouth still full.

Brian laughs. “He’s not, if it’s any consolation. It’s just his way of checking in with me, if that makes sense. I don’t know. It’s a long story.”

Freddie pauses. “That’s sweet,” he says, considering.

“Yeah,” Brian murmurs. “He’s sweet. He can be a prick sometimes, but he’s a good friend.”

It’s the same way Freddie has described John countless times—an utter asshole when he wants to be, but loyal and kind when it counts—and the thought makes him smile. “Maybe he and John really will be good for each other,” he offers, and Brian grins.

They spend some time in an arcade, Freddie beating Brian at Dance Dance Revolution to Toxic of all things. Brian beats him twice at Galaga, but he uses the tickets he wins to buy Freddie a horribly tacky mood ring shaped like a dolphin, so he’s forgiven.

“Have you ever gotten your fortune read?”

“No. I know they’ll just tell me I’ll be a bachelor for life or something.”

“Sounds like you’re scared.”

“Well have you?”

“Yeah.”

“What’d they say?”

“That I’d be a bachelor for life or something.”

They wander through a few different high-end boutiques, poking each other whenever a shop attendant watches them as if waiting for them to try to steal something. 

“This would look good on you,” Freddie says, holding a shirt up.

Brian raises his eyebrows. “Sequins?”

“Mhmm.”

“It’s very…” he starts, trailing off as he picks up the sleeve and rubs the fabric between his fingers.

“Very what?”

“I don’t know. 70’s?”

“It’s glam,” Freddie says dismissively. “You could pull it off.”

“It’s kind of nice,” he says, considering. “I’m a little broke, though.”

“Did they refuse to comp your flight, too?”

“Yeah,” Brian says, wincing. “I don’t know. How much does it cost?”

Freddie frowns, checking the price tag. As soon as he reads it his eyes go wide, and he gingerly puts the shirt back on the rack with a level of care more appropriate for handling a live bomb. It might as well be a live bomb, really. At that price, if he damages even a single thread he’ll be working the rest of his life trying to pay it off.

Brian watches him worriedly. “That bad?”

“Don’t look at it,” Freddie says. “Don’t touch it. Oh my god. I can’t believe _I_ touched it.”

“Sushiritto,” Brian says flatly.

Freddie looks over at him. They’re walking side by side next to a row of shops, the awnings providing them scant shelter from the blazing sun. “What’s that, your safeword?”

“Sushiritto,” Brian laughs, pointing at a sign.

The two of them come to a halt outside of the shop, peeking in warily.

“Does that mean it’s seaweed full of burrito ingredients?” Freddie asks warily. “Or is it a tortilla full of raw fish?”

“I don’t know,” Brian hums, trying to see the menu through the window. “I don’t know if it matters either way, actually. I’m vegetarian.”

“They’ve definitely got vegetarian options,” Freddie says.

“How do you know?”

“This is LA. They probably have options for every dietary restriction imaginable.”

He pushes open the door. They’re immediately bombarded with smells of sesame and soy sauce, and he breathes it in happily.

“Hi!” the man behind the counter says, his voice chipper and bright. “How can I help you guys today?”

“Do you do vegetarian?” Freddie asks him.

“Honey, we do keto, paleo, gluten free, bulletproof, low-synthetic anti-iodize, and goop-style. Of course we do vegetarian.”

“What’s low-synthetic anti-iodize?” Brian asks, lost.

The man just shakes his head and gives them a thousand-yard stare. “You only know if you know.”

“Ah, yes,” Brian says, holding Freddie’s hand in his own and skimming through the tiny list of colors. “This here means that you’re—uh, _enamorado.”_

“I’m what?” Freddie asks, squinting down at his mood ring.

“Dunno. Can’t find the English on this. Is there any chance you speak German?”

“ _Nien_ ,” Freddie sighs.

“Guess we’ll never know.”

“I just don’t like hanging out with other beauty vloggers,” Freddie says as he looks out at the water. He can’t quite bear to turn to look at Brian; he can feel his eyes on him, and just the weight of it is too much. It’s much easier to squint at the light playing off the waves and the handful of surfers laying on their boards, moving up and down with the sea. “That’s what I’m learning. They’re all horribly catty.”

“You shouldn’t judge them so harshly,” Brian tells him, his voice gentle.

“I know.” He sighs. “I know I shouldn’t, darling. They’re probably just putting a brave face on for the public just like I am. We’re a horribly insecure bunch.”

“You have nothing to be insecure about.”

Freddie glances at him quickly and then has to look away just as fast. Brian is watching him, unblinking, and the softness in his eyes is too much.

“Do you wish you didn’t do it?” Brian asks him. “Vlog, I mean.”

“No,” Freddie says. “No, I don’t regret doing it, if that’s what you’re asking. I like doing it, even. I just don’t know if I’ll do something like this again.”

Brian nods. “Yeah. I understand that.”

They’re silent for a long beat, and he senses more than sees Brian turn to follow his gaze. The sea rises and falls, and a few of the surfers stand as a particularly large wave rises over the others. Most of them topple immediately off their boards as it crashes, but a few manage to ride it back toward shore.

“It’s not all bad,” Freddie murmurs. “It’s not like nothing came out of it. At least I met you.”

He doesn’t have to look at him. Somehow he knows that Brian is smiling.

“Why would you want the spiciest ramen in LA?” Brian asks, confused.

Freddie’s entire face is on fire. His brain is boiling. He’s pretty sure he’s hallucinating. “I grew up in India,” he says determinedly. “I can handle it.”

“It can’t possibly be that hot,” Brian says, stirring his own much milder soup around in its bowl.

“Seriously?” Freddie asks him. “You think I’m just sitting here drowning in my own sweat for the sake of it?”

“Maybe you just don’t have as high a spice tolerance as you thought.”

Freddie glowers at him. Brian just blinks back innocently.

Somehow he forgot that Brian is a competitive asshole. Somehow, despite the fact that the reason they even talk at all is because of their constant need to one-up each other, Freddie forgot what a _dick_ he can be.

He leans over quickly—quick enough that Brian can’t pull back, let alone react—and pecks him on the lips.

For all of five seconds he stares at Freddie, confused. His eyes flit back and forth between Freddie’s eyes and his mouth, his brow furrowed adorably as if he’s not sure why that happened and is trying to figure out how he can make it happen again.

And then he drops his chopsticks as he throws a hand to his lips, reaching for his water. “Oh _fuck_ ,” he hisses.

Freddie dabs his own damp brow and shoves more burning-hot noodles into his mouth. “Not that spicy, my ass,” he says through his mouthful of food.

In an uncharacteristic display of pettiness and vulgarity Brian, still chugging his water, flips him the bird.

“Your ring says you are _liedenschaftlich._ ”

“Sorry, what did you say about licking shafts?”

The sun is dipping low in the sky. They’re piled into a lyft, ready for the ride home, when Freddie suddenly sits up in his seat.

“Wait,” he says to the driver. “One more stop.”

“Are we picking someone up?” she asks him.

“No, I’m changing the destination,” he says, tapping away at his phone. “Sorry. There’s one more thing we have to do.”

Brian blinks at him. “Did we forget something?”

“No,” Freddie says quickly. “Well, yes. I forgot.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” he says. “It’s a surprise.”

The car winds up the mountains, up and up and up into the hills. Brian’s legs are a little bit too long to fit comfortably behind the driver’s seat, his knees splayed awkwardly. Freddie swings his leg over until their knees bump together. Brian smiles out the window and bumps him back.

He’s smiling even harder when they reach their destination. “Freddie,” he whispers.

The car comes to a stop, and Freddie smiles at their driver in the rear view mirror. “Thank you, darling.”

“Of course,” she says. “You boys have a good night.”

“You too.”

Brian follows him out of the car wordlessly, still staring at the building rising up on the cliff’s edge before them. The Griffith Observatory is even more splendid up close, the white of the walls shining a brilliant orange in the setting sun. Brian is just staring at it with his mouth hanging open slightly, rooted to his spot on the curb, and the sight makes Freddie grin.

“Good?” he asks.

Brian looks at him, his lips curving up into a smile that Freddie could almost describe as _dopey._ “You realize this is an invitation for me to infodump at you about space, right?”

“Darling,” Freddie announces, trotting off toward the building, “I would like nothing more than for you to infodump at me about space.”

Brian follows him, shaking his head as he laughs, and Freddie can’t quite breathe around the fluttering feeling in his chest.

It’s practically empty inside. Hardly anybody is in sight, the entrance desk bearing only a _free admission_ sign against the marble top. He spins in a dizzy circle just because there’s nobody to see him do it, the worn soles of his trainers skidding against the terrazzo tiles, and lets his head fall back to look up at the paintings on the ceiling.

Brian comes up behind him, letting his hand trail cautiously against the small of Freddie’s back to let him know that he’s there more than anything. Freddie deliberately lets his feet tangle, slipping against the floor until he trips backward, his back hitting Brian’s chest as Brian throws a hand around his waist to steady him.

That’s better.

“It’s beautiful,” Brian breathes into his ear, and he shivers. “It’s like—like…who did the Sistine Chapel?”

Freddie laughs. “You don’t know anything about art, do you?”

“I know a lot about other things,” Brian says defensively, a laugh hiding in his voice.

“I know you do,” Freddie soothes. _And I love you for it,_ he wants to add, but he catches himself at the last second. “You’re a scientist and a musician. You’re very smart.”

“At least we’ve got one language in common,” Brian mutters.

Freddie grins to himself. “Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel,” he says.

Brian huffs out a laugh against the side of his head. “Was he the one who cut off his ear?”

“You’re fucking with me.”

He laughs for real at that. “No, I know. That was Monet.”

Freddie reaches back to smack him and Brian snorts as he catches his hand. He tangles their fingers, wrapping both their arms around Freddie’s waist, and Freddie really has to admire his bravery.

“Tell me about it, then,” Brian murmurs.

“It’s art deco. The whole building is,” Freddie tells him. He leans back against him and Brian sighs. “It’s one of my favorite styles. I think it’s so clean and lovely. It tells a story. Do you see it? That guy is inventing some sort of thing over there, and that guy looks like he might be some kind of professor.”

“That’s Isaac Newton,” Brian says. “I think the other guy is Da Vinci.”

“Who are the others then, if you’re so smart?” Freddie teases.

“Uh,” Brian says, turning them around the room. “That there is Copernicus, I think? And that’s Galileo. The guy on the left is Arzachel. I think in the next mural over is Emperor Yao, and on the right is Ulugh Beg.”

“Ulugh Beg,” Freddie repeats.

“Yeah.”

“You’re making that up.”

“I am not! He was a sultan!”

“When?”

“…1400 or so?”

“You’re telling me you can recognize a sultan from the thirteenth century on sight,” Freddie says flatly.

“He was really significant to astronomy,” Brian says defensively. “He catalogued over nine hundred stars. I think that’s him, anyway.”

“Who’s that over there?” Freddie asks.

“Which?”

“The one looking at that naked guy’s dick.”

Brian pauses, then snorts. “I have no idea,” he laughs.

Brian tugs him through the halls, star charts and diagrams lining the walls. Massive models of the planets hang from the darkened ceiling, and Freddie has to pause to look at each one; Brian eagerly murmurs facts and explanations into his ear all the while.

Freddie’s never seen him quite as lively as he is now—he’s never seen him quite this happy. It’s brilliant, watching him talk about things he’s passionate about. The same energy never quite comes through when he’s doing it in front of a camera, and Freddie only realizes now that he’s been holding back for the sake of his audience. Here, like this, his words come fast and smooth even as he pauses now and then to struggle for the right word, rubbing his fingers together as he thinks.

He’s wonderful.

He new ever since the night before—ever since he first saw him, really, but their second meeting by the poolside had just cemented the knowledge—that Brian was never quite made for this odd little world they’ve stumbled into. Brian is excellent at presenting himself online, at speaking in public and charming people with a single smile, but he’s a whole different person like this. Here, where the spectacle of it all is missing and the self-consciousness fades away, he’s absolutely breathtaking.

They round a corner to the sight of a wall-sized diagram. A dotted line stretches down the middle, a series of constellations following it.

“I know these ones!” Freddie says.

Brian raises his eyebrows. “You would.”

“That one’s mine,” Freddie says, pointing.

“Virgo?”

“Mhmm.”

“That makes sense,” Brian says dryly.

“Does it?”

“No,” Brian huffs. “It’s a soft science, Fred. It’s not real.” 

“You’re such a cancer,” Freddie tuts.

Brian blanches.

“Oh my god,” Freddie laughs. “You are, aren’t you?”

“…No.”

They make it to the end of the hall just after sunset, pushing open the massive brass doors side-by-side and stepping out onto the white stone deck. The sky is still orange on the horizon, fading into a deep purple, and the great grid of Los Angeles is spread out before them. He can’t see any stars in the sky yet, and he isn’t sure any will even appear with the light pollution below, but it almost doesn’t matter. The city glitters in a completely different way, dazzling and alive.

He follows Brian to the rails and leans against them, the two of them standing there for a long moment. The air smells good here, a refreshing change from the stifling atmosphere of the hotel, and he breathes it in gratefully.

“Hey, Freddie?” Brian asks softly.

He turns to look at him. “Yes, darling?”

“Thanks for…” he trails off, licking his lips. “For all of this, I guess. I needed it, and I didn’t even know. I think you’re the only one who saw that.”

Freddie nods slowly. “Of course,” he murmurs. “It’s no problem.”

“And thanks for being so kind after everything,” he continues, his voice even quieter than before. You didn’t need to be. I was horrible to you.”

“Likewise,” Freddie says, his brow furrowing. “We got off to a rough start. You don’t need to apologize for that. If anything I should thank you for giving me a second chance.”

Brian shakes his head. “No, I mean it. I know I’m not the greatest to be around—”

“Who said that?”

Brian pauses. “You did,” he says slowly. “The other day, at your panel. That there’s this tension—”

“No,” Freddie says quickly. “I didn’t mean it like _that,_ darling. People expect us to act a certain way around each other. It’s part of our images at this point.”

“So you were lying?”

“I wasn’t telling the full truth,” he says hesitantly. “It’s not because you’re not great to be around or some crap like that. It’s—whatever this is that we’re doing—it’s important to me, alright? You’re important to me,” he murmurs, and Brian’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly. “Any tension I talked about was just in reference to that. To the ways that I want you,” he adds. He’d almost be embarrassed for the way his cheeks heat up—he would be, if not for the way that Brian blushes to match.

“You…” Brian starts, trailing off. His eyes flit to Freddie’s lips.

“Of course I do,” Freddie says quietly. “Of _course.”_

Brian looks up, his gaze heavy and only made darker by his eyeliner. It doesn’t quite manage to cover up his hesitance, though—the doubt in his eyes, the wonder on his face—and Freddie watches him right back. He’s not doing it this time. He’s made enough first moves. It’s Brian’s turn to close that gap and put himself out there.

Brian looks down at his mouth again, leaning closer before hesitating. When Freddie doesn’t move he reaches up and pulls Freddie’s glasses gently off and out of the way.

He kisses him slowly and carefully and so, so sweetly. It makes Freddie’s head spin, even as gentle as it is. He presses closer and feels Brian’s chest hitch against his own. For a long moment they’re suspended in time, the scant spaces where they’re touching fizzing and burning and electrically charged, and he never wants it to end.

But then Brian is sighing blissfully through his nose and threading his fingers through Freddie’s hair and tugging him closer with a hand on his waist, and that’s somehow even better.

Freddie doesn’t know whether it’s because of the way Brian keeps tugging him insistently closer or because of his own eagerness, but somehow between one moment and the next Brian is pinned between the rail and his own body, his thumb tracing Freddie’s cheek reverently. Freddie licks into his mouth, slow and easy, and Brian lets out the faintest, breathiest moan in the back of his throat before cutting it off just as fast.

It’s like the elevator all over again, but better. It’s better to be able to savor him like this; to be able to revel in all his little sounds and reactions. It’s so much better, and it makes him feel practically dizzy.

When he pulls away finally it’s to the sight of Brian watching him with heavy-lidded eyes.

“Do you want to get out of here?” Freddie asks him under his breath, and Brian nods.

“Take me home.”

They ride back to the hotel in a silence punctuated only by the sounds of traffic around them and the old Weeknd song crackling through the radio.

Brian’s knee is moving up and down as if he can’t stop shaking it. If not for that one movement Freddie would have thought that he was utterly serene; he’s looking out the window, a peaceful smile resting on his lips.

Nonetheless, Freddie silently reaches across the seat to let his palm rest warmly on his knee. The movement stops all at once, but other than that Brian doesn’t react. A few moments later he reaches down, turning Freddie’s hand over gently and lacing their fingers together, still smiling out the window all the while.

They thank the driver as they finally arrive at the hotel, the two of them sliding out of the seat and stepping out onto the curb. The light from the lobby is shining through the massive glass windows just a little too brightly; once they’re back inside they’ll be themselves again, restless and agitated under the endless scrutiny and limelight.

As if having the same thought Brian pauses, his thumb tracing the back of Freddie’s hand.

“Would you want to come upstairs with me?” he asks Freddie quietly. “Just for a drink or something.”

“A drink?” Freddie asks, licking his lips.

Brian’s eyes immediately jump to track the movement. “Or something,” he says.

And he wants to play coy, he really does, but he’s nodding before he’s even completely thought the question through. “I’d love to, darling,” he says. “At risk of sounding cliché, you wouldn’t mind if I stopped and changed into something more comfortable, would you?”

Brian lets out a startled laugh. “You—yeah, go ahead,” he replies. “Hard work being in costume all day, isn’t it?”

“Mmh. Ten minutes,” Freddie says as they start toward the hotel. “That’s all I’ll need, and then I’m all yours.”

“I look forward to it,” Brian throws over his shoulder, pushing through the revolving doors.

They manage to make it through the lobby without being recognized. Brian pushes the elevator call button and then grins when the elevator that arrives is the same one in which they first met. The moment they’re inside and the doors are closed he’s letting out a tiny laugh.

“What?” Freddie asks him, bemused.

“Nothing,” he says, still smiling. He leans over and kisses him sweetly on the mouth, grunting in surprise when Freddie drags him closer and bites at his lip.

It doesn’t last nearly long enough. The elevator dings as it reaches his floor, the doors sliding open, and Freddie sighs. “I’ll see you. Ten minutes.”

“Don’t leave me waiting,” Brian replies with a smirk that’s a bit too sweet to be suggestive, and Freddie’s heart rolls in his chest.

He definitely doesn’t smile at Brian like a dope as the doors close between them.

His steps feel lighter than usual as he makes it down the hallway. His heart feels like it’s going to beat out of his chest. Being infatuated with someone feels so _good_ , and he can’t believe he’d almost forgotten it. He sighs as he comes to a stop in front of his door to dig out his room key, still smiling to himself.

And then he pauses.

There’s light coming out from the crack below his door. He hadn’t left a light on—in fact, it’s impossible to turn on any lights in the rooms without the room keys.

He frowns and swipes the room open quickly, all but throwing the door aside.

He’s greeted with the sight of a pink-cheeked John Deacon standing in front of his minibar.

“What are you…” Freddie asks, trailing off as he looks around. “Are you in here for the minibar? I told you you could use it whenever you want, but I didn’t think—”

“I know,” John says quickly, his voice not quite slurring. He smiles at Freddie just a shade too brightly. “I know. It’s okay though, right? I just needed a drink.”

“Or twelve,” Freddie says, his eyes falling on the handful of empty bottles on the counter. “God, John. What’s gotten into you?”

John smiles at him warmly again—and Freddie knows him well enough by now to know that look when he sees it. He’s already closing the door and moving across the room as the corner of John’s mouth wobbles, and then his expression is falling altogether as he lets out a hiccupping sob.

“Oh, honey,” Freddie shushes him, wrapping his arms around him and sitting them down on the foot of his bed. John has to duck to tuck his face into Freddie’s shoulder; he’s not the wiry kid Freddie once knew, but somehow he still fits in his arms all the same.

“I’m sorry,” John sobs. “I’m sorry. I know you had—I don’t want to ruin your night, but I—”

Freddie just shakes his head. He digs his phone out of his jeans with one hand. He doesn’t have Brian’s number, but it takes him all of ten seconds to dm him a simple _rain check :(_ on Instagram and that will have to be enough. “Don’t apologize,” he says as he does it. “It’s alright. There’s nothing more important to me than you right now, okay?”

John takes long minutes to calm. He doesn’t move, not even when his sobs subside slightly, his frame still jerking with each one and his tears leaving wet spots on Freddie’s shoulder, and it gives Freddie long enough to stare at the mini bar and note that the entire thing is empty. John can be a sad drunk, but not like this—not over nothing. He mentally scans through anniversaries of family deaths and tragedies but comes up short.

When John finally relaxes against him, still breathing shakily against his shoulder, Freddie speaks. “What’s going on?” he asks him quietly.

John just sighs, leaning back finally. He doesn’t go far, still pressed against Freddie’s side, and that at least makes Freddie feel a little more confident.

“Is it Roger?” he asks him gently. “Because if he hurt you I’ll rip his balls off.”

“Don’t, Freddie,” John says, his voice defeated. He scrubs at his eyes with the back of his sleeve. “I can’t even blame him for it.”

“So he did do something,” Freddie mutters. He envisions ripping out Roger’s pretty gold hair lock-for-lock. He seemed like a nice enough bloke, but making John cry like that is a capital offense.

“Nothing that wasn’t my fault,” John huffs. “He didn’t know because I didn’t tell him, and now—” He trails off as he starts tearing up again.

“Come on, now,” Freddie says, rubbing his back. “None of that. You’re okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I did. Or I didn’t, rather,” he whispers. “I didn’t tell him it was my first time.”

Freddie blinks. “Your first…”

“With a guy. I didn’t tell him. I didn’t want to freak him out.”

“But what about—you’ve dated men before. Surely you—”

John shakes his head. “No, I _didn’t_. There wasn’t—I was too nervous and shy and _stupid_ , but with him it just felt like it would be okay.”

“Did he hurt you?” Freddie asks him seriously. “I’ll kill him.”

“No! He didn’t! He was good, he was _perfect_ , but he didn’t _know_. I didn’t tell him, and I wanted it to mean something when I—because I was waiting for, for the right person or whatever, and I didn’t tell him that either, but I thought, I thought, I _thought_ that he was special. I like him so much, Freddie,” he sobs, lifting his face from his hands. “I like him, and I thought he’d be—be someone who would stay. Who would stay with me.”

“What happened?” Freddie asks again, keeping his tone gentle. “What did he do? You two seemed so happy this morning.”

John flops backward onto the bed, his hair flying around him and his face still buried in his hands. “He said—he said that he needed someone who—he can’t waste his time anymore. On people who can’t make him feel good. Who can’t give him what he needs.”

Freddie’s breath freezes in his chest.

“And he said he talked to Brian about it and that Brian said that he should talk to me because he’s done wasting time—he’s been wasting time and he doesn’t want to anymore. With me. And if I really want him I need to try harder.”

“That fucking piece of shit,” Freddie hisses under his breath. “He said that?”

“He said enough,” John sighs. Somehow that’s what makes his sobs finally subside. He throws his elbow over his eyes, swallowing hard. “I can’t believe I—fuck. I can’t believe I waited all that time just for _him._ ”

Freddie hums. “Was it good, at least?”

“ _Yeah._ I thought so, anyway. I thought he thought so, too. He seemed to be…I don’t know. Enjoying himself. I thought he didn’t even notice that I have no idea what I’m doing, but I guess I was wrong.”

“Nobody’s good their first time,” Freddie offers.

John scoffs at the ceiling. “How about their thirteenth time?”

“Christ, John,” Freddie yelps. “You’ve known him three days.”

“We’ve been busy,” John shrugs with a tiny smirk—a smirk that rapidly fades. He lets his arm fall above his head, staring up at the ceiling. His eyes are still wet; he’s one of those people that can’t quite stop crying once he starts, his eyes watering for ages afterward and an angry flush clinging to his cheeks; he always has been, ever since they were kids. “Fuck, Freddie,” he sighs. “I didn’t—they seemed nice. They seemed _good._ ”

They had. Brian in particular had seemed nice today; he was nice all day, his smiles sweet and his eyes soft beneath all the makeup. Brian was nice to walk by and talk to and be with; he’s nice to kiss.

He’s just apparently not nice enough to resist telling Roger to break John’s heart over something so trivial—so utterly meaningless. John, his John, who doesn’t understand twitter and cries at movies with weddings in them and has only slept with two people in his life because when he gives someone everything he gives them _everything_ ; he’s still naïve enough to put all his chips with one person, and Freddie never wants him to lose that because of people who don’t understand that it’s a gift.

People like Roger—Roger, who had only waited three days to decide that that wasn’t enough. Brian, who hadn’t hesitated to back him up on it.

“Freddie?” John asks weakly, and Freddie starts.

“Yeah?”

“I need a drink.”

“You drank the minibar.”

“It was too mini,” he says sadly. “I hate being underage. The US sucks.”

“I know, darling.”

“And I’m kind of hungry.”

“I know.”

“I want to dance.”

“You can’t go out,” Freddie tells him gently, “but what you can do is put on some music and wash your face off with some cold water for me, alright? You don’t want to keep those tears on your skin.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to go downstairs,” Freddie says, “and I’m going to buy us a _very_ big bottle of gin, and maybe a pizza. And then we’re going to get hammered, and then we’re going to dance to whatever music we want, and then we’re never going to talk to Brian May or Roger Taylor ever again. Does that sound good?”

John’s eyes well up again. “Love you,” he mumbles.

“I love you too. Now up! Forward.” He hoists John to his feet and smacks a kiss against the side of his face loudly enough that John snorts out a laugh. “No more tears!”

Later, gin making his head spin, John dead asleep and curled up in a tight ball on the other side of Freddie’s bed, Freddie lays awake staring at the ceiling. Not even the haze of alcohol is enough to soften the fury shaking its way upward inside of him. As he closes his eyes he ingrains the moment to memory—ingrains the entire night to memory—and imagines recording it over the tape of every laugh he and Brian had shared that day.

None of that matters. Not a single good thing he’s ever said or done matters. All that matters is this. This is who he really is, and Freddie despises him for it. He despises him, period.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am pleased to announce that the soundtrack to this chapter is 100% Never Leave LA by Emily Kinney, and you 100% have emma_and_orlando to thank for that! 
> 
> Sorry to end all that fluff on such a sad note, but do not worry! Conversations will be had! Eventually! Love it? Hate it? Let me know, I love hearing from you all :-)


	7. Chapter 7

The morning is heralded in by the blaringly loud text tone of Brian’s phone.

He groans, barely even opening his eyes as he rolls over and gropes around on his nightstand. It’s a long moment before he finds it at all, and when he does the light of the screen practically burns his eyes. The room is still delightfully dark, the sun not quite making it through the heavy blackout drapes, and between Freddie cancelling their plans and Roger being missing in action—likely just sleeping in John’s room, though Brian didn’t bother checking—he’d actually had a good night’s sleep for once. He’d been hoping to drag it out a little further.

No such luck, apparently.

A text from an unknown number graces his phone screen. _Brian May,_ the preview reads, _a happy birthday to you! Now that all…_

He flops down backward in bed, groaning again. He’d almost forgotten.

Roger hasn’t texted him yet—not to wish him a happy birthday, not to apologize for missing his plea to hang out last night after Freddie had ditched him, nothing—and he has half a heart to be bitter about it. The feeling only intensifies when he checks Find My Friends only to see that Roger has temporarily turned off location services.

Maybe Freddie will have answers, or will at least want to get breakfast to make up for their evening being cut short. He doesn’t want to make a big deal of his birthday—he’s never really liked the attention they bring in the first place—but that doesn’t mean he particularly likes the idea of being alone. There’s something pathetic about it, even for him.

He opens Instagram and clicks Freddie’s profile.

_No Posts Yet_

He frowns, refreshing the page a few times.

_No Posts Yet_

_No Posts Yet_

Shaking his head, he switches quickly to the twitter app, his heart practically in his throat.

_@RealQueenMercury blocked you. You are blocked from following @RealQueenMercury and viewing @RealQueenMercury’s tweets._

He stares at it for a long moment, uncomprehending.

They’d had a good day, hadn’t they? Freddie had said he liked Brian. He’d kissed—

No, Brian had kissed _him._ Did he misread everything somehow? Did Freddie not want him that way—not like him that way? How had he misread something like that? Freddie said himself that—

He practically drops his phone as it begins buzzing in his hand.

“Shit,” he mutters, scrambling to catch it and accept the call. “Hello?”

_“Birthday boy!”_ his dad says loudly. _“How are you doing, Bri? Having a good day out there in Los Angeles?”_

_“We can’t believe you’re already twenty four, love,”_ his mum chimes in. _“We’re so, so proud of you. Twenty four—you’re practically grown, aren’t you?”_

“I wasn’t grown at twenty three?” he asks them distractedly. He turns speaker phone on so he can continue to stare at Freddie’s twitter profile, biting his lip in thought.

_“Well, you’ll always be our baby, won’t you?”_ his mum says. _“We just wish we could celebrate with you in person. We’ll take you out to dinner as soon as you’re back in London, alright? We can’t wait to see you.”_

“Yeah,” he says. He squints at his phone for a moment before opening YouTube. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

_“It will be great to have you back in town either way,”_ his dad says, his voice carefully bright. _“I’m glad you got this break. It’ll be just what you need to resume your studies with full focus.”_

He pauses. “What’s that? Sorry.”

_“So spacy, Brian,”_ his mum chides. _“Head in the stars.”_

_“Well, that’s the idea, isn’t it? The boy has to focus, after all.”_

“I am focused,” Brian says, affronted. “I’m always focused.”

_“Even so, it must be difficult to concentrate with all this YouTube stuff going on.”_

“YouTube stuff,” he echoes flatly.

There’s a sudden rapping on the door.

_“Yes, YouTube stuff,”_ his dad says uneasily. _“You know, I understand that it’s a means of an income but it’s—it’s not quite what you’ve been working toward, is it? And it’s taking up so much of your life, your career…”_

The knocking comes again.

“Sorry, one second,” Brian says quickly, covering the receiver as best he can. “Who is it?”

“Room service,” an American voice calls back.

“I didn’t order anything.”

“It’s a gift.”

_“…your reputation,”_ his father continues, unaware of the interruption. _“We’re just worried.”_

“Worried about my reputation?” Brian asks. He turns speaker phone off, lifting the phone to his ear. “I’m sorry, there’s someone at the door. I’ve really got to let them in.”

_“We care about you, Brian,”_ his mum says wistfully, apparently not having heard him.

He crosses the room, opening the door quickly, and is met with the sight of a massive three-tiered cake on a wheeled table. Large sparklers are shooting flames out of the top.

“Should I just leave this here?” the bellboy asks.

“I didn’t order this,” Brian says faintly.

“The VidCon team got it for you,” he says, bored. “Happy birthday, man.”

Brian blinks at it helplessly.

_“We just want you to have a stable form of employment!”_ his mother exclaims into the phone. _“Maybe it makes me an unsupportive mother, but I don’t want your twenty-fourth birthday to be marked by you making the cover of the Daily Mail!”_

“I’m on the cover of the Daily Mail?” Brian asks into the phone.

“What?” the bellboy asks.

_“Yes! There’s an article about you and that—that Frankie Pluto or whoever—”_

“It’s Freddie Mercury,” he says levelly. “I think you know that.”

“Listen man, I’ve got other deliveries to do,” the bellboy says.

Brian presses a hand to his temple. “Right. Great. Listen, I really can’t take this cake in here right now—”

_“What cake?”_ his dad asks.

“They warned you that it was coming, dude.”

“Who?”

_“Who are you talking to?”_

“The VidCon people,” the bellboy says.

“I didn’t get anything from them,” Brian says flatly.

“Check your phone. They texted you. Listen, can I just leave this in your room?”

“Fine,” Brian groans.

_“Is that room service?”_ his mum says. _“Don’t be so rude to them!”_

Brian shakes his head. “If you only knew what was happening—”

_“That’s the issue! We don’t know what’s happening anymore with you! You’re a smart boy Brian, and we don’t know why you’re throwing your life away like this!”_

He pulls his phone away from his ear, letting her rant into open air while he opens the text from the unknown number and scans it quickly.

_Brian May, a happy birthday to you! Now that all the pleasantries are out of the way, it has come to our attention that yesterday you and another con-goer left the hotel grounds to tour Los Angeles. While you didn’t skip any events and are therefore not in trouble, we’d like to gently remind you that featured guests leaving the con is frowned upon. Further indiscretions will result in a disciplinary meeting. Have a great birthday, and accept this cake along with our warmest well-wishes! Sincerely, the VidCon team._

He groans. Disciplinary meeting? Who are they, nuns? He has no idea how they even found out, unless…

Unless John posted his tiktok.

He opens the app quickly, searching for John’s profile.

_You can’t follow this account._ No content posted.

Great.

“Is right here good?” the bellboy asks.

“Yeah,” he says, distracted. He raises his phone back to his ear just as his mum finishes off her rant. “Great,” he says. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

_“Did you hear a word I just said?”_

The bellboy is waiting beside the still-flaming cake, blinking at him expectantly. “Shit,” he mutters, groping for his wallet and rooting around in it for coins—no, bills. Ones are only on bills in the US. Stupid system—why are they all the same color and size?

_“Don’t use that language with me!”_

“Sorry, sorry,” he murmurs. He snatches a few bills finally—twenty dollars, is that too much for a tip? Too little? He honestly doesn’t know, but the more than pleased look on the bellboy’s face makes him think it’s fine—and hands them over. “Mum, I’m not trying to be rude, I’m really not.”

“Good luck,” the bellboy says, waving to him as he walks through the still-open door and off down the hallway.

_“We’re worried about you,”_ his mum reiterates. _“We want the best for you. People like this—this Copper—”_

“Mercury.”

_“—they just aren’t worth your time and energy. You need to let this go and focus on your schoolwork.”_

He sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. It’s really, really hot in here. Is it just him? “I can’t exactly do anything about it right this second,” he reasons.

_“I know,”_ she says soothingly. _“What do you say once you’re back in town we go out to dinner for your birthday and we talk about it then?”_

No, it’s _really_ hot in here. It’s really hot, and he smells smoke.

His eyes snap open.

The sparklers on the cake have somehow shot flames onto the bed, setting the throw blanket at the bottom on fire. He curses, grabbing the duvet and throwing it over the small fire and slapping it with his hand.

_“Don’t curse at us!”_

“Listen,” he snaps, still struggling to put out the fire. “You said it yourself. I’m a grown man and it’s my life, so will you just leave it alone?”

_“That’s absolutely no way to talk to your mother.”_

“I don’t really care!” he says, ripping a still-flaming sparkler out of the cake and blowing it frantically. Nothing happens. “I’m dealing with twenty things at once, I don’t even know what’s happening, I’ve just woke up and this is already a nightmare of a day, so can you slow down? Please?”

He turns, exasperated, ready to stomp to the bathroom to dump the damned thing in some water. He stops dead when he sees Roger paused in the hall just outside the doorway, donning a wrinkled green shirt and a pair of sunglasses, his hair a mess and his face pale. He lowers his sunglasses just enough to take in the sight of Brian, holding a phone in one hand and a sparkler in the other, still wearing pajamas, his bed smoldering behind him.

“Happy birthday?” he tries uncertainly.

The smoke alarm goes off.

Roger is very blatantly hungover, and not carrying it particularly well.

As soon as they’re outside, following the stream of angry conventiongoers who have been forced to evacuate the building, he pushes his sunglasses even higher up on his face. He’d spent their last frantic few seconds in the room cutting himself a rather generous slice of cake and dumping it unceremoniously into a mug, while Brian had struggled to locate a pair of trousers and a shirt that didn’t scream I’ve-just-rolled-out-of-bed. He’s now eating the cake as they walk, using a coffee stirring stick as a fork.

“So are you okay, or…” he starts.

Brian scoffs. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

Roger frowns at him. “No.”

“Rog…”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to talk about it.” He stabs at his cake viciously. “God, why’d they get you lemon? Everyone and their mother knows you’re a chocolate-hoarding fiend.”

Brian shrugs. “It’s the thought that counts.”

“The thought of lighting your room on fire at eight in the morning?”

“At least they didn’t call me in for a disciplinary meeting,” he mutters.

Roger snorts. “What are they, nuns? What do they have to discipline you for, anyway?”

“For ditching yesterday,” he says, then groans. “Fuck, Roger. I almost forgot. Freddie blocked me on—everything, basically.”

“Yeah?” Roger says, shoving some cake into his mouth. “Good riddance.”

“What?” Brian asks, frowning. “What happened?”

“I told you I don’t want to talk about it,” Roger mutters.

“Was it—did something happen with you and John?”

“Fuck, Brian! I said—”

“I don’t give a shit,” Brian says quietly. “You know I don’t really care about the whole birthday thing, alright? But so far today I’ve been chewed out by my parents, the psychos we work for lit my hotel room on fire, and I’ve gotten—this guy I really like, who I thought things were going really well with, decided to block me on basically every single app I own after he cancelled on me last night, and all that’s been before nine o’clock, alright? I don’t really need to hear this from you, too.”

Roger is silent for a long beat. He pauses finally, turning to face him head-on. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, well,” Brian mutters. “Apparently everyone else did, seeing as I’m on Daily Mail for some reason.”

“Maybe they just want to wish you a happy twenty-fourth?” Roger offers.

“I kind of doubt it.” Brian tugs Roger’s arm until he gets the message, the two of them settling on a bench a little ways down the boardwalk, away from prying eyes. He digs out his phone and opens twitter, scrolling down until he finds the article.

**Daily Mail Online** @MailOnline · Jun 19 2020

Happy Sunday! Start the day right, by wishing Brian May a happy birthday and a happy start to his affair with fellow Brit, @realFreddieMercury. What’s going on over there in LA? #Vidcon2020

Over his shoulder, Roger lets out a breath through his teeth. “Fucking vultures,” he hisses. “What happened, then?”

“I don’t know,” Brian murmurs. “He just—everything was going well last night, and I invited him back upstairs. He said he was going to go change, and then ten minutes later he messaged me asking for a rain check.”

“And then what?”

“And then nothing.”

“It’s like I said,” Roger murmurs. “Good fucking riddance.”

“What happened, Rog?” Brian asks him softly. “It’s you and John, isn’t it?”

He’s still for a long moment. “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he says finally. “You and Freddie—I support you guys. I always thought you would be good together. I’m sorry I ruined it.”

“You didn’t ruin anything,” Brian says immediately, shaking his head.

“I talked to John,” he says. “About—about what you said. It didn’t go well,” he adds with a laugh that lacks all humor.

“Roger…”

“I thought,” he starts, then immediately stops. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever. I feel like an idiot.”

“It can’t have been that bad.”

“It was,” Roger says. He lifts his glasses, wiping at his eyes with his sleeve—the sleeve of the shirt that Brian had seen him wearing the first day, which he only now realizes belonged to John—and Brian’s heart breaks a little. A second later Roger is smiling at him as if he isn’t crying behind his glasses. “Win some, lose some, huh?”

“You don’t need to just brush this off,” Brian says. “I know how you felt about him.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Roger says. He opens his phone. “What I really need is to move on, and to help you celebrate tonight. Look.” He angles his phone toward him, and Brian skims the invite open on the screen. _VidCon2020 Party! Join us at Bear Club on July 19 th! Free admission and half off drinks for featured creators! _“That’s our destination.”

Brian swallows hard. It would be good to get out, and he should probably do something to take his mind off Freddie’s rejection. A rebound is probably just what he needs. Still, though… “You’re sure you’re alright?”

Roger laughs. “I will be. Don’t worry about me. Besides, this will do me some good.”

He sighs. “If you’re sure.”

“I’ve never been more sure of something. It’ll be fun.” He pockets his phone and offers Brian the rest of his cake. “Ten o’clock pregame?”

“My room or yours?”

“Well, mine isn’t singed but yours has cake…”

“Mine, then,” Brian says. He grabs the last lump of cake with his fingers and throws it into his mouth. “Alright. Ten it is.”

“Great,” Roger says. “We’ll need to drink the woes of the day away, anyway. Have you read the agenda?”

“Small groups?” Brian asks with a frown. “I don’t really know what it means.”

“Small groups of fans,” Roger says with a sarcastic eyebrow wiggle. “They pay extra to meet with us specifically and learn our ways. Or flirt, or whatever. I’m not really sure what they’re supposed to be doing, actually.”

“Which means…”

“Which means you’ll spend all day hanging out with hot hipster girls,” Roger says. “Most of tomorrow, too. I get to spend that time with weird teenage edgelords, most likely. John…” he trails off. “Uh, yeah. It’s gonna be great.”

“I mean, I suppose it’s an honor,” Brian offers. “The fact that people would pay so much money just to talk to us…”

“I suppose, yeah,” Roger replies. “I suppose. We’ll have to see.”

Behind them the fire truck pulls back onto the street finally, the crowd of hotel guests cheering as they’re allowed back into the building.

“Right on schedule?” Brian asks.

“Right on schedule,” Roger notes, checking his phone. “Alright, then. Let’s face the music.”

Small groups go about as well as expected.

He has no idea what to expect from them, and he’s pretty sure it shows. They have a conference room booked just off the third mezzanine, and he shows up ten minutes early with the top tier of the cake that was still sitting in his room, snatched up by him as he ducked between repairmen and concerned maids.

It doesn’t matter how early he is. At least half of the guests beat him there.

“Hi everybody,” he says, and nine heads snap around to look at him. It feels somehow like teaching, and the weight of that falls easily on his shoulders. He at least knows how to run a class. “I’m Brian. It’s my birthday and people keep giving me cake, so I brought you all some. I’m not really sure what to expect, or what you guys are expecting, so I suppose we can just keep things casual here, right?”

“Did they not brief you on what’s supposed to happen?” one of the girls asks.

He shakes his head. “They really didn’t brief me on anything. VidCon has been an interesting experience, honestly. What did they tell you guys?”

One of the boys is scrolling through his phone. “They told us it would be a kind of workshop for how to get started on YouTube, how to make it big and that sort of thing.”

“And they thought that _I_ would be a good person to…”

“Well, you made it big, didn’t you?”

He shrugs. “I guess? I’ll tell you what I can, but I think a lot of it is just about luck. Uh…” he trails off, wracking his brain. “I don’t know. Where do you want to start?”

And that’s how they launch into an hour-long back and forth about techniques, microphone specs, lighting and mood-setting, camera angles and all manner of things Brian honestly hadn’t even thought about in years. It’s nice, in a way—not exactly what he expected out of it, but it’s nice to pick these things apart and talk about them.

By the end of the first hour the room is noticeably more relaxed. Most of his guests are no longer sitting up quite so ramrod-straight, slouching in their chairs and abandoning their notebooks in favor of talking amongst themselves and blurting out questions.

“Can I ask you guys something?” he says. “And you can go ahead and answer honestly. I teach maths on the side, so I’ve got a pretty thick skin. Why’d you choose this workshop and not one of the other ones?”

“You’re my favorite,” a girl with long blonde hair and a millennial pink top says immediately, smiling at him warmly.

He feels his cheeks heat. “Uh, thanks,” he says.

“You’re my favorite, too.”

“All the gamers ran out of room and you’re my favorite ASMRtist.”

“Gibi was full,” the boy from earlier says with a blush, holding his hands up when several people boo him. “Really though, I’m also—I was interested in maybe getting into lutherie so I thought I could talk to you about it.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Brian says. “I know it’s not really what I’m here for, but I always love to talk about that side of things.”

“I was trying to get into John Deacon’s group,” a girl with glasses says timidly. “It was full of teenage boys and moms though, and I thought this would be a better environment.”

He raises his eyebrows. “This one’s also kind of full of teenage boys,” he points out, and a few of the boys laugh.

“I know, but at least these ones are normal _,_ ” she says. “His fans are, like, on a different level completely. Like I’m pretty sure they’re crazy. They’re all edgelords.”

“Vine kids,” one of the boys mutters, shaking his head.

“I don’t know why, either,” she continues. “He always seemed so sweet to me. It makes no sense why all his followers are so horrible.”

“Maybe he’s not as sweet as you think,” Brian offers before he can stop himself.

“Well you know him, right? What’s he like?”

“I don’t know him well,” Brian says quickly, backpedaling. “I’ve only spoken to him once, really. He’s a complicated person and it’s difficult to get a good read on him.”

“Well Roger likes him a lot, doesn’t he?”

Brian can’t quite hide his wince at that. “I’m not sure I really can say much about it.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Oh, leave him be,” the blonde girl says quickly. “You can’t really expect him to talk shit about his best friend, can you?”

“It’s not really shit talking,” Brian says. “It’s alright, really. It’s just—the four of us, we have a complicated…relationship, I guess. Friendship. Whatever. It doesn’t really stay static for long, so I don’t want to say something if it’s going to change later on.”

“So you think it will change?” the girl with glasses pushes. “That you and Freddie will become friends and that John and Roger will hate each other?”

He winces again. “I really can’t even say that. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” the blonde girl says. “Guys, we’re out of time, I think. The photo thing downstairs starts in ten minutes.”

“Shit,” one of the boys mutters. “I’m in the first group for that.”

“You guys better get going, then,” Brian says. “It was nice to meet you all! I think we’ve got this tomorrow—”

“Same time,” the girl with glasses says over the noises of chairs shuffling and notebooks rustling.

“Great,” he says. “I think it’s the same room, too, so I’ll see you all then, alright?”

They all chime out their goodbyes as they file out of the room. He pushes in a few of the chairs more out of habit than anything, collecting paper plates and any other litter that he can find. Once a teacher, always a teacher, he supposes.

He practically jumps out of his skin when he realizes he’s not alone.

“Oh,” he gasps. “Sorry, you startled me.”

The blonde girl from earlier flicks a lock of hair over her shoulder. “Sorry,” she says, her voice low. She steps closer to him with a smile. “I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday.”

“Thanks,” he says awkwardly. “Uh, don’t you have an event downstairs?”

“It can wait,” she purrs, and his cheeks heat. “You know, I thought your voice and everything was just an act for your channel, but I was wrong, wasn’t I? You just talk like that.”

“Like what?” he asks nervously.

She laughs. “Don’t be so twitchy. It’s alright. You’re very soothing to be around. Has anyone ever told you that?”

Freddie had. Freddie had told him that; that his channel was calming, addictive and mesmerizing. Freddie, who had flushed and squirmed when Brian leaned forward to whisper praise into his ear. Freddie, who’s so pushy and needy when he wants to be, but Brian would love to know what the same praise would to do him in a different context—if he’d grow even more needy or if he’d relax under the soothing weight of it and let Brian have his way.

Freddie—Freddie, who he might never speak to again. He needs to move on.

“There’s a party tonight,” the blonde murmurs to him. “At one of the clubs. You know it?”

“Are you,” he starts, then feels like an utter knob. “Sorry, but are you old enough? I thought—”

“I’m twenty-two,” she says with a light roll of her eyes. “Not that it matters. It’s eighteen and up. Most of our fellow group members won’t be able to get in, but I don’t see that as such a bad thing. It just means we’ll get a little bit of personal time to get to know each other, doesn’t it?”

He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want _her_. He wants Freddie—his Freddie, who tells him about art and teases him gently and kisses him just a little too hard.

It doesn’t matter. He’s not going to get him.

“That sounds good,” Brian murmurs, and the girl’s smile broadens. “What’s your name?”

“My name’s Sarah,” she says lowly, “but _you_ can call me Peaches, if you want.”

That’s not a real name. That’s a name for a stripper or a small dog. For some reason he hears the thought in Freddie’s voice, and he shakes his head subtly to dispel it. “I’ll see you tonight,” he says.

“I look forward to it,” she replies demurely, before sliding gracefully out of the room.

What the fuck.

He shakes his head, waiting a long moment before following her. He doesn’t want to run the risk of awkwardly having to walk down the hallway with her. The elevators are all in the same direction, after all.

He should have just bit the bullet. The person he ends up running into is the far worse alternative.

John pauses for barely half a second when he sees him—just long enough for Brian to take in the glow of his skin, the youthful dewiness in his cheeks, the fact that not a hair is out of place and there’s not a wrinkle on his shirt, the sleeves casually rolled up. He looks practically red carpet ready, and Brian’s chest tightens when the image of Roger, greasy-haired and hungover, comes to his mind.

And then John is huffing, turning and stomping away in his fashionably embroidered platforms.

“John,” Brian calls, breaking into a jog when John only picks up his pace. “Hey! John, wait.”

“I have nothing to say to you,” John snaps.

“I don’t think that’s really called for,” Brian tries, frowning as he pushes forward to block his way.

“Oh, you don’t?” John spits. “How nice for you. Now move.”

“Will you just calm down?” Brian snaps. “I don’t even know what happened.”

“You know damned well what happened. Don’t try to lie to me.” When he balks John just presses in further, his eyes cold. “Never mind the fact that apparently he’ll tell my own secrets to you before he tells me that he’s figured them out for himself. I always thought he was the one with poor impulse control, but it turns out the two of you just enable each other, don’t you?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Brian tries.

“You know exactly what you did.” John takes a deep breath, appearing to calm, and that almost sets Brian at ease. Then he opens his mouth again. “Pretend you’re too sensitive and depressed and gentle to hurt anyone all you want—pretend Roger is moral and good and not the pig-headed _asshole_ who wouldn’t know real love if it bit him in the ass.”

“Hey—”

“Just don’t go near Freddie,” he says, unblinking. “You’re damned lucky you ruined my week and not his. If you’d have done to him what Roger did to me, I’d have killed you.”

He shoulders past him hard enough that Brian stumbles, disappearing rapidly down the hall.

Brian can do nothing but blink after him. He has no idea how to even begin to unpack all that—what Roger did, what he did—

_What_ did he do?

Roger was going to talk to John about how he felt. He was worried that John didn’t feel the same. Why is John accusing Roger of not knowing how to love someone?

What secret is Brian apparently so aware of?

He shakes his head, pulling out his phone. There must be some sort of mistake. He’s just about to dial Roger’s number when he hears a voice coming out from one of the conference rooms.

“He’s not, so let’s just leave it, alright?” Freddie is saying.

Before he can help himself Brian creeps closer to the door.

“Just tell us!” a girl says. “Come on, it’ll stay between all of us, anyway.”

“A secret between all fifteen of you? Yeah, I’m sure that’ll stay in this room. Come on now, darlings. I’m already keeping you late as it is.”

“Please, Freddie. We already know that you two are friends.”

Freddie is silent for a long beat. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“We already know you guys were lying for publicity.”

“Okay, if you really want to know I’ll tell you, then,” Freddie says. “This doesn’t leave here, alright?”

Despite himself, despite knowing that it can only end badly, Brian leans forward, practically holding his breath so that he can hear better.

“We started out as enemies,” Freddie says. “That much is true, so don’t go around thinking that it was all made up. We became friends later, and that was nice. But he’s betrayed me one time too many now. He’s done things I really can’t forgive him for, and it breaks my heart because I thought he was better than that. I wanted to be friends with him, I really did,” he adds, pausing. “Don’t believe anyone who says otherwise. But—god. He’s broken all of my expectations of him twice now. I really don’t think I can wait around for him to try to prove that he’s a half-decent person after all. I don’t think it’s something he can prove, anyway.”

Brian blinks, stumbling back from the doorway. He doesn’t need to hear any more—he doesn’t _want_ to hear anymore. He doesn’t know if he can take it.

He’s halfway to the elevator before he remembers that they’re still fumigating his room and trying to find him a new mattress. God, but this day is already a mess. He walks instead to the stairs, all but jogging through the lobby and out onto the street below. He enters the first empty café he sees, settling himself into a booth and burying his head in his hands.

How had everything gone wrong so quickly?

It has to be a misunderstanding. That’s all he can think about. It has to be. He didn’t do anything wrong, and he’s fairly certain that Roger didn’t either. Roger wouldn’t have the heart to, let alone the motivation.

All either of them wanted was to be honest about their feelings, and to find someone who would share them. Is that too much to ask for?

“Bienvenue to Parfait Aujourd’hu…ay,” a bored voice says.

“It’s aujourd’hui,” Brian grunts into his hands.

“Well that would hardly rhyme now, would it? They told me to make it rhyme.”

Brian’s head snaps up. “You.”

“Likewise. What are you having a nervous breakdown about today, then?” Chris asks with a sigh.

Brian buries his face back in his hands. “It’s my birthday,” he says. “Do you have a birthday special?”

“Why do you look like you’re about to cry on your birthday?”

Despite his hard blink his eyes prickle at that.

Chris’ eyes widen. “Woah. Um, okay. I’ve got a chocolate one. You like chocolate, right?”

Brian nods.

Chris disappears, only to arrive five minutes later with a parfait approximately the size of Brian’s face, two spoons and a mug which Brian immediately recognizes as a mocha based just off the smell. He pulls it closer, blinking as Chris pulls off his apron and sits down across from him in the booth.

“Do you not have tables to clear or something?” he asks faintly.

Chris shrugs at the empty tables around the café. “You’re really my only customer,” he says pointedly. “I figured you could use some company, anyway. There’s nothing quite as sad as eating birthday food alone.”

Brian shrugs at that, accepting the spoon Chris hands him and taking a large scoop of pudding. “It’s not that bad,” he murmurs. “It’s not as if it’s by choice, anyway. Foreign country and all that.”

“Even so, it’s better with someone else,” Chris offers. “Take it from me.”

“You’ve been here that long?”

“Six months. Not too long. I’m about to be deported. I think I’m wanted for tax evasion, actually.” At Brian’s raised eyebrows he laughs. “Don’t worry about it. I’m more worried about you.”

“What are you, my therapist?” Brian mutters.

“I’m a bartender. It’s basically the same thing.”

“You’re a bartender?”

“I was last night,” he says, shoving a spoonful of whipped cream into his mouth and talking around it. “Bartended for Roger last night, anyway.”

Brian frowns. “Roger was at a bar? He didn’t tell me.”

“He probably doesn’t want to talk about it. Listen, I don’t know exactly what happened—”

“Neither do I,” Brian says quickly. “Everything unraveled so quickly this morning. I have no idea what’s going on.”

“What, he won’t tell you about it?”

“Did he tell you anything?” When Chris hesitates he leans forward. “Please, just tell me. I can’t do anything about it if I don’t even know what happened.”

Chris studies him. “He said something,” he says slowly. “Something about his…I don’t know, boyfriend?”

“John?”

“Is that his name? He didn’t say,” Chris shrugs. “He said the guy doesn’t love him—that he was just using him for sex or something like that. I don’t know, by that point in the night he’d pretty much devolved to crying all over my counter. He was a mess.”

“What else?” Brian pushes.

Chris rolls his eyes. “You should really be asking him about this, you know. Alright, he said he told the guy that he wanted them to be more honest with each other, but the guy got really defensive about it and ended up saying some pretty nasty stuff to him. That’s it. That’s all I know.”

Brian sighs heavily. “Great,” he mutters.

“What? Was that not what you wanted to hear?”

“I don’t know anymore.” He takes a long sip of his mocha. “I have no clue. None of this is adding up. God, but I wish I’d never come out here in the first place.”

“To my charming storefront?” Chris asks flatly.

“To Los Angeles. I should’ve stayed home.”

Chris claps him on the arm. “Chin up, man,” he says. “If you have a _really_ wild night you might get lucky and get deported like me.”

Brian blinks at him.

Chris just smiles back and steals another large scoop of his parfait.

“Hey, listen,” Brian offers. “Would you want to come out with us tonight?”

“You couldn’t afford me.”

“I’m not trying to date you,” Brian says quickly. “I’m just—if you and Roger get along maybe you should come along with us. He’d like it.”

“Thanks,” Chris says. “I’ve got plans tonight though, unfortunately. I’ll see you around though, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Brian says, sinking deeper into his chair.

“You’ll be fine,” Chris says, surprisingly seriously. “It’s gonna be okay, alright? Keep an open mind. Maybe it’ll all work out faster than you’re expecting.”

Brian just sighs, blinking down at his coffee. He can certainly only hope so.

He makes his mind up as he throws on his best dark shirt and carefully smudges a little eyeliner around his eyes. He’s going to talk to Freddie tonight. He’s got to. He can only repeat the sentiment to himself over and over as he fluffs his hair and checks his reflection one last time in the mirror.

None of this is going to be resolved if he doesn’t do something. He’s willing to risk making it worse.

Roger wolf whistles at him from the sofa, a large bottle of vodka in hand. “Looking good, May.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Brian huffs, rolling his eyes. “You ready?”

Roger nods as he takes a swig from the bottle. He’s wearing tight black pants and an open, loudly-patterned bomber jacket that serves to show off his bare chest. “Let’s take this town by storm.”

“Hopefully not too much. I really can’t end up in the tabloids again.”

Roger grunts. “Let loose a little,” he says. “It’s your birthday, after all. There’s nowhere this night can go but up.”

Brian just shakes his head as he follows him out, flicking off the lights. The last thing he sees before he shuts the door is his own reflection, and try though he might he can’t quite shake the worry from his own eyes.

Together they start toward the elevators, their car already waiting outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the short-ish update! It’s partially because I’ve fallen into a hole by making tarot cards this week, and partially because I was going to put the club scene in this one as well but it would’ve made the whole thing a little bit too long—that, and I would rather tell it from Freddie’s perspective anyway. 
> 
> But there’s good news to all this, which is that I think the first chunk of the joger side of this will be out later this week! Let’s aim for…Sunday? It’s fun so far, it’s pretty explicit and should hopefully provide a little more clarity to what’s going on. 
> 
> Speaking of e-rated stuff, just out of curiosity would anyone be horribly against the rating of this going up? Not that I'm sure it's going to yet, but I thought I'd ask. 
> 
> That’s all the announcements that I have, I think. Please let me know what you think, either here or on tumblr @sweetestsight! I love to hear from you all <3 Stay safe!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm literally begging you to listen to DONTTRUSTME during the first half of this chapter. Please. It's practically a plot summary.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Freddie asks him, not for the first time.

John shakes his head sharply. He flicks his cigarette butt into the bin as they approach the entrance to the club. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Don’t pull that with me. You know damned well why I’m asking.”

“Stop looking for issues when there aren’t any,” John says flatly. “Just because you want me to cry on your shoulder and pretend that we’re little kids again doesn’t mean it’s what I need. It certainly doesn’t make it true, so just give it up.”

“John,” Crystal says from John’s other side, taking a final drag of his own cigarette, “don’t be a dick.”

The fact that Crystal had agreed to come with them at all is a miracle, in Freddie’s humble opinion. After meeting his fellow countryman at the coffee shop by the hotel they’d become fast friends—or at least, Freddie thinks so. Crystal had only agreed to come out when Freddie promised to help him get the number of a bartender he’d been carrying a flame for. It was the least he could do for the man after he’d forced him to listen to Freddie whine about how upset John was all morning, not to mention having to witness a hungover, pissed-off John Deacon in person.

The last bit seems to be an ongoing phenomenon.

“Apologize to him,” Crystal huffs. “After everything he’s done, it’s the least you can do.”

John wavers, his eyes softening. “You’re right,” he says finally, his voice quiet. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I know that you’re just trying to help.”

“And you’re right in that you can take care of yourself,” Freddie sighs. “I just—you don’t _have_ to, alright? If you need to talk about it, I’m here for you.”

“And if I just want to drink until I forget about all of it?”

Freddie studies him for a long moment, but when John doesn’t flinch he just nods. “Yeah, sure. If you want to employ unhealthy coping mechanisms, then I’ll carry you home.”

John offers him a tiny smile before turning. The three of them climb the stairs to the club, presenting the bouncer with their ids and convention badges. The bouncer waves Freddie and Crystal in without a second glance, pausing only to scribble sharpie x’s on the backs of John’s hands.

Freddie and Crystal hand over their coats to the host as they step inside. John doesn’t even pause before starting toward the opposite wall.

“You following him?” Crystal shouts over the music.

“Sure,” Freddie says distractedly. “Are you—”

“I’ll be just a minute, I swear. That girl—”

“Yeah, yeah. Go ahead.”

Freddie sighs, scanning the room for John’s head. No doubt he’s already in the bathroom, though Freddie doubts he’s just in there to check his reflection.

Although really, he couldn’t blame him.

Freddie had gone all out that morning. He’d put Beyonce on and given John a pep talk as he carefully washed and toned his face for him. He’d rolled his jade roller across the inflamed bags below his eyes, plied him with eyedrops and foundation and a healthy spot of blush, and thrown a little highlighter on the bow of his lips.

The last part was mostly because he’d just always wanted to.

The end result had been a John who looked like he hadn’t lost a single tear or a second of sleep over Roger’s stupidity. He very much did _not_ look like he’d spent the entire night before crying his eyes out and trying to drink himself to death.

That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t still feel like shit. It doesn’t mean he isn’t trying to repeat that performance tonight.

By the time Freddie has followed John into the bathroom his friend is already crouched over the sink, pulling a tiny bottle of hand sanitizer from his jacket and dumping it all over the backs of his hands.

“I’m not buying for you,” Freddie tells him pointedly. There’s a bowl of things beside the sink: wipes, band-aids, toothpicks. He pockets a box of matches with the club’s name written on it.

The sharpie dissolves as easily as if it were magic marker under his touch, washing down the drain and disappearing. “You bought for me after Ronnie dumped me,” John points out.

“Yeah, well. I wasn’t at risk of getting deported when Ronnie dumped you.”

“If you get deported over this I’m getting deported, too. Besides, Chris is getting deported regardless.”

“That doesn’t make it better!” Freddie argues. “We still need to—”

They’re interrupted by the door swinging open, two girls stumbling blindly into the room. They’re locked at the mouths, hands all over each other, the dark-haired one gripping long golden locks in her hands and pulling hard as Roger’s—

_Roger._

Freddie’s heart is suddenly in his throat as he meets John’s eyes in the mirror. John hasn’t noticed, not yet, but the look on Freddie’s face must tell him that something is off. A second later he’s glancing at the couple’s reflection, and then all at once he’s spinning around to look at them directly. His eyes are wide and flat and unfocused, his breath visibly shuddering in his chest.

Freddie reaches for his arm, meaning to drag him out of the room, but he knocks the bottle of hand sanitizer from the edge of the sink instead. It clatters into the basin, and all at once Roger is looking up.

Shock registers on his face for barely a second. His companion doesn’t even look up at all, just uses Roger’s moment of distraction to latch her mouth against his neck. His eyes flick from Freddie’s to John’s, and then all at once a smug, cruel smile is stretching across his lips. He reaches up to thread his fingers through the girl’s hair and hold her in place, keeping eye contact with John all the while.

Freddie could kill him; he honestly could, but he doesn’t get the chance to. John lets out a huff, storming out of the room and not looking back.

“You’re a real piece of shit,” Freddie hisses at Roger as he leaves.

“Tell that to him!” Roger calls after him.

The last thing Freddie hears before the bathroom door slams shut behind him is the girl breathing, “Oh my god, was that Freddie Mercury?”

He pushes through the crowd, immediately finding John at the bar. He doesn’t look sad, at least, though the fury on his face isn’t the best alternative.

“I don’t want to hear it, Fred,” he says over the music, not even looking as Freddie sidles up next to him. “He’s a fucking—an utter waste of my time, and I don’t want to spend another second thinking about him, alright? So don’t even say anything.”

“What if I were offering to buy the first round?” Freddie counters.

John looks at him, probably wondering if he’s serious. When Freddie doesn’t move he smiles, just a tiny trace of a thing. “Gin and tonic,” he says.

“Want it in a sippy cup?”

“Wanker,” John replies, but he lets out a tiny laugh as he does it, and something settles in Freddie’s chest.

Freddie shouts his order across the bar, the bartender miraculously managing to read his lips despite the pounding music and flashing lights. A moment later he’s handing a shot of vodka and a gin and tonic to John. John immediately downs the shot and hands the glass back to him.

When he turns around again, his own drink in hand, it’s to the sight of a ginger-haired boy leaning on John’s shoulder and whispering into his ear. John is laughing, the sound inaudible over the music.

“You good?” Freddie shouts.

John nods at him distractedly and tilts his head toward a table in the corner. Freddie nods, watching his new friend pull John away.

“Just as well he gets trashed as fast as possible, if you ask me,” Crystal yells into his ear, materializing at his side from quite literally nowhere. “It’s better that you drag him home completely trashed sooner rather than letting him do something stupid later.”

“I don’t think he will,” Freddie replies. “How much trouble can he really get into?”

“The quiet ones always surprise you,” Crystal hums. “What are you drinking?”

“Vodka sour. I’ll buy you one.”

“Cheers.”

Freddie gestures to the bartender, who squints at him for a minute before nodding and preparing another drink for him. The movement has him leaning over the bar slightly, and when he turns he just barely makes out a familiar head of hair a few stools away.

“Shit,” he breathes.

“What is it?” Crystal asks, taking the glass that’s held out to him.

“Fucking curly,” Freddie hisses.

“What?”

“Fucking curly,” he shouts. “Twelve o’clock.”

Crystal squints. _“Brian?”_

“You know him?”

“Yes. Why? What’s he—”

“Christopher Taylor,” someone yells from across the bar. Freddie turns to see a rather fearsome bartender leaning across the counter.

“Marlena,” Crystal sighs.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing in my bar?” she spits.

“Other than trying to start a conversation with a beautiful woman such as yourself? Not much.”

“Fortunately there are plenty of beautiful women in here with no self-respect. Find one with vision problems and you might just have yourself a date.”

“You wound me.”

“Keep moving, Chris. I’m on the clock.”

“And when are you on break?”

She pauses at that—actually pauses, and Freddie has to wonder at Crystal’s game—before leaning forward. “You still remember how to dance with me?”

Crystal nods, lips parted.

“Ten minutes. Wait for me.”

Freddie is just barely close enough to hear Crystal squeal under his breath before rushing off toward the dance floor.

“Wait!” Freddie shouts. “Help me get rid of—”

“Bigger fish to fry!” Crystal yells, throwing himself through the crowd condensed around the bar. Freddie huffs, shaking his head after him.

“Freddie,” a voice says from his other side.

He doesn’t even need to turn in order to see who it is. He drains his vodka sour, swallowing it down in one gulp before he even bothers to give Brian his attention. He knows he’ll need it, at this rate.

Brian isn’t quite drunk yet, but it’s a near thing. His cheeks are pleasantly flushed, but the sweetness of it doesn’t quite manage to detract from his tragic expression.

“Save it,” Freddie says immediately. “It won’t work on me.”

“Freddie, I don’t know what—”

“What, you think you can—can swoop in here with your dumb hands and legs and everything will be okay?”

“You’re drunk.”

“I’m getting there,” he says with a saccharine smile.

“Listen to me,” Brian says quickly over the pounding of the music. “There’s been some sort of mistake. I don’t know what you think I said to Roger, but I didn’t do it.”

“Like I said,” Freddie says, standing up from his stool. “Save it.”

“I told Roger to tell him how he feels,” Brian blurts out. “He was scared he’d get rejected.”

Freddie pauses, wavering. “What?” he asks finally.

“He’s in love with him. Everyone knows it.” Brian licks his lips. “He was afraid that John doesn’t love him back; that John just wanted him for sex. He was afraid because he wanted more.”

That doesn’t make sense. That doesn’t make any sense at all. “But John said—”

“I know. Freddie, I swear to you, whatever you thought I said to him, I didn’t do it. It was all a mistake. Whatever is happening between them is a mistake.”

Freddie holds his gaze for a long moment, but Brian doesn’t waver once. His eyes are cool and honest, even beneath the flashing club lights.

Freddie opens his mouth to reply, and then all at once the beat changes.

_“Black dress, with the tights underneath,”_ the speakers blare, and around them people scream.

Freddie swears, already searching for John in the crowd. He just barely catches sight of him before he disappears around the corner, heading toward the dance floor, and Freddie all but lunges after him.

By the time he reaches him John is already busting out an extremely drunken 80’s-esque shuffle, complete with vaguely pinwheeling arms and snapping hips. His drink sloshes over the side of his glass as he closes his eyes.

“John,” Freddie shouts over the music. “It’s time to go. Come on.”

“One dance,” John calls. “This is my song!”

A moment later he’s sucked into the vacuum of people behind him, a boy gripping his hips while a girl presses herself against his entire torso, and Freddie sighs.

And then he feels a body against his back.

“I swear to you,” Brian shouts into his ear. “Whatever I can do to prove it to you, I will. I’m—you know something isn’t right about this.”

Freddie turns around, effectively pressing their chests together. They have to stay close with the press of bodies all around them, and Brian’s hand settles on his hip as Freddie stumbles. He’s not pushing him in any particular way, so Freddie will allow it. For now, anyway.

“I didn’t see Roger last night,” Brian shouts. “He went to some bar and practically drank the place dry. He was upset, Freddie. He was devastated about something.”

“Not nearly as upset as he made John,” Freddie snaps. “To think that I trusted you when all along you were the one who advised Roger to dump him, knowing full well—”

“I didn’t do it!” Brian insists rapidly. “I told him they needed to talk. He said he didn’t think that John even liked him—that he was holding his cards so close to his chest—”

“He’s shy!” Freddie shouts.

“I know!” Brian replies. “I know, I just—this isn’t making sense! And whatever secret it was that John keeps talking about, I don’t know it!”

Freddie pauses. “You don’t know it.”

“No!” he huffs. “Why would I?”

“Brian,” a voice whines behind Freddie, and when he turns it’s to see a girl with long blond hair staring at Brian plaintively.

“Who the fuck is this, then?” Freddie snaps.

Brian groans. “It’s—I’m sorry. I don’t know your real name. Peaches?”

“Hi, daddy,” she purrs.

Freddie’s blood boils. To his credit, Brian looks rather green. “Don’t, uh,” he says with a grimace, “please never call me that again.”

“Get rid of this guy,” Peaches whines. “I wanna dance with you. I got you a little present, you know.”

“Where is it?”

“You need to unwrap it,” she says innocently. “Well, and there’s coke, too. You can have both if you follow me to the bathroom. Come on.”

“I’m busy,” Brian insists. “I really need to talk to him.”

“But you said you’d spend time with me tonight!”

“Go away,” Freddie snaps. “How many times does he need to say it?” 

“You’re one to talk,” Peaches huffs. “He doesn’t even like you. He hates you.”

“That’s not true,” Brian says quickly. “Freddie—"

Freddie leans forward. “You need to sort your shit out, Brian,” he hisses.

Brian looks at him with wide eyes, and Freddie is a little horrified to see the traces of tears gathered in the corners. “No, please don’t go. I—Freddie, I swear to you, I _promise—_ ”

“Fred,” another voice says over his shoulder, and when he turns Crystal is there, looking at him warily. “We’ve got a situation.”

“Chris?” Brian asks, confused.

“Oh. Hi, Brian.”

“What are you doing here? I thought you had plans.”

“He’s plans,” Crystal says, pointing at Freddie.

Brian raises his eyebrows at Freddie pointedly, and Freddie huffs.

“It’s not like that, you jealous prick,” he mutters.

“Does that make you the pot or the kettle?” Brian asks innocently.

“Look, this is great,” Crystal says, “but you really need to—”

“We’re not done here,” Brian insists.

Someone shouts behind them.

Freddie turns just in time to see space rapidly clearing on the dancefloor, two familiar figures caught in the middle. He can’t hear what Roger and John are shouting at each other over the still-pounding music, but judging from their faces he can take a guess. The next second Brian is pushing through the crowd, getting between the two of them and trying to force them apart.

The instant Brian’s hand meets Roger’s shoulder the girl Freddie recognizes from earlier in the bathroom steps forward and pushes Brian’s chest hard enough that he stumbles backward _._ Peaches, to her credit, all but lunges through the crowd, tackling the girl to the floor.

One of the girl’s friends launches himself at Brian, his large fist making contact with Brian’s delicate cheekbone and his posture held firm and square in perfect boxer’s form. Freddie finds himself lunging toward the man before he can help it, slugging him directly in the stomach and shocking the smug look right off of his ugly face.

“Pick on someone your own size,” he hisses through his teeth as the guy doubles over.

Not even a second later he’s bowled over by someone else. Through the tangle of limbs and the rush of dodged hits he catches a glimpse of Crystal grabbing a man by the collar and dragging him straight into his right hook. Brian is managing to hold his own, mostly by dodging fists as if his life depends on it. Freddie pushes his attacker off just as he sees someone take a swing at John, only for Roger to pull him out of the way with a hand on his waist, turning gracefully to knee the offender straight in the dick.

And just like that the dancefloor devolves into a full-out brawl, 3OH!3 imploring them loudly not to trust a hoe all the while.

“Well,” Crystal says pointedly, his voice nasally from the two Kleenexes jammed up his nostrils.

Freddie hums noncommittedly.

On his other side Brian shuffles his bag of frozen peas, holding them a little more firmly against his face. His long legs are practically curled against his chest, his elbow propped against his knee and his feet resting just below the curb where they’re all seated. John and Roger are on Crystal’s other side, sitting completely silently with their shoulders pressed together.

“I got your jackets back,” Peaches announces, crossing the sidewalk toward them. “The bouncer gave me some water for those two, as well.”

“Thank you, Peaches,” Brian says tiredly, accepting the bundle of jackets she hands him.

She hesitates, looking back and forth between Brian and Freddie. Freddie glares at her harshly, and she grits her jaw. “Well, I’m sorry your birthday was such a bust,” she says, and Freddie’s breath catches a bit at that.

_Birthday._ It’s Brian’s birthday. Fuck, but July had passed so rapidly. How had he missed it?

“My uber’s here,” Peaches continues. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Brian mutters.

His temporary shock falls away at that. Freddie glares after her, and then turns his gaze to Brian himself.

“What?” Brian snaps. “Don’t give me that. She’s in my small group.”

He forces himself to soften, tamping down the wave of jealousy in his chest. He can’t be jealous of what Brian does—not when he was the one who blocked him in the first place.

On his other side Crystal sighs, tugging one of the Kleenexes out of his nose and inspecting the blood on it with a grimace. “Am I to assume, then,” he says, “that Freddie is the fuckbuddy?”

“Excuse me?” Freddie asks.

“Yeah,” Roger offers.

“Then John is the boyfriend?”

“Boyfriend?” John asks hesitantly.

“Yeah,” Roger repeats.

“So your John is…this John?”

“Yeah.”

“ _Your_ John?” John says angrily. “I think that’s a bit generous, don’t you?”

“What?”

“Pretty sure you gave up any right to call me yours.”

“Deaky, I don’t—”

“You don’t deserve him,” Freddie says. “Especially since you’re so willing to hurt him at the drop of a hat.”

“I saved him from being punched in the face not ten minutes ago, or are we already forgetting that? I’d _marry_ him if I could, but that doesn’t change the fact that—”

“That what?” John snaps. “That—that the sex is so bad that the whole thing is just a waste of time to you? Is that it?”

“What on earth made you think the sex is—"

“That I apparently can’t stop loving you, despite how you’ve—”

“You love me?!”

“Yes! Of course! What, you thought I waited that long to sleep with a bloke because I couldn’t find one who was willing?!”

“You…” Roger starts, trailing off. “ _What?!”_

John’s face goes blank. Then it goes green.

Then he leans forward and vomits into the gutter, narrowly avoiding Roger’s shoes.

Crystal groans, pulling the other tissue out of his nose. “I hate that you guys invited me to this,” he tells Freddie conversationally.

“Believe me,” Freddie answers, “I hate that I invited myself to this.”

“Need help getting them home?”

“No, no. I doubt they’ll even remember any of this. We can drag them back to the hotel ourselves.”

“Right,” Crystal grunts. “I’m off, then. Roger?”

Roger looks up from where he’s gently stroking John’s hair, John’s face now hidden in his shoulder. “Yeah?”

“If either of you break each other’s hearts again, I will kill you both. Probably him first, though. You’re kind of a more pathetic drunk.”

Roger frowns. “Kill me first. I don’t want to live without him,” he says, wrapping an arm around John’s waist protectively.

“No,” John whines, muffled into Roger’s shirt.

Crystal rolls his eyes. “Freddie, good luck with—” he gestures between Freddie and Brian vaguely—“whatever this is. Brian…happy birthday, mate.”

“Cheers,” Brian says earnestly from behind his peas.

Freddie digs out his phone as Crystal walks away, calling them a lyft and thanking his lucky stars when he finds one just a block away.

Piling their drunk companions into the backseat proves to be slightly more of a struggle than they originally anticipated, mostly because the two of them won’t let go of each other. Honestly, the whole night is giving him whiplash.

“Deaky,” Freddie says firmly, poking him in the cheekbone. “Look at me. Do you want me to sit in the middle?”

John blinks at him. “I want to sit next to Roger.”

“Half an hour ago you were trying to drink yourself to death to forget about him.”

“John,” Roger wails.

Their driver leans back to look at them. “Listen, are they good?” he asks Freddie. “I charge extra if you throw up in my car.”

“They’re fine,” Freddie says with an eye roll. He knows John well enough by now to know how he can boot and rally. “They’re just idiots.”

“I’m so sorry,” Roger murmurs. “I can’t believe that it all—”

“It was all me, though,” John says. “Because I didn’t tell you anything, and I was so scared that you would learn and you would think less of me. And I thought—”

“Sorry,” Brian says to their driver as he climbs into the shotgun seat. He makes brief eye contact with Freddie in the rear-view mirror. “It’s been a long night.”

“I can see that,” their driver says.

“I love sex with you,” Roger insists. “How could you think that I didn’t like sex with you?”

“I was just—I got so defensive. You said you wanted someone who makes you _feel good._ What was I supposed to think? I assumed you meant—”

“How? You literally made me pass out, like, two nights ago. I felt like my brain was leaking out of my—”

“Okay!” Freddie says loudly. “Guys, I’m really glad that you’re friends again. Let’s talk about something else, yeah?”

“Like John?”

“We’re already talking about John, Rog,” Brian points out.

“I know. He’s really great.”

“They’re kind of sweet,” the driver says to Brian quietly.

Brian sighs. “Please don’t encourage them,” he mutters.

“You should encourage me. I don’t talk about it nearly enough, apparently.” John tells their driver. Roger lists over from the middle seat, his face coming to rest in John’s collarbone. “I can’t believe you thought I didn’t like you. How could I not? You’re incredible.”

Roger groans.

“You okay, Rog?” Freddie asks him.

“I’m dying.”

“What?” Brian calls, alarmed.

“There’s a feeling in my chest,” he says, and Freddie strongly considers jumping out of the vehicle into moving traffic. “It feels like a sponge being wrung out. It hurts, but in a good way.”

“That’s called love, bro,” the driver says pointedly.

“Incredible,” Roger breathes, as if it’s the greatest discovery of their time.

Freddie rolls his eyes.

“It’s cool, man,” the driver tells them. “You should express yourself. Love is so fleeting, you know? There are so many misunderstandings in the world.” He flips the turn signal on languidly before driving them down the street leading to the hotel. “If you care about someone, you’ve gotta tell them. Life’s too short to do anything else.”

Freddie swallows hard. He can feel Brian’s gaze on him in the mirror, but he doesn’t meet his eyes.

Getting their friends out of the lyft proves to be only slightly less of a challenge than it was to get them in, if only because at least they’re willing to go. Even so, by the time Freddie is done dragging John to the elevator bay he’s practically breaking out in a sweat.

“When did you get so fucking heavy?” he gripes under his breath.

“When I grew five centimeters taller than you,” John giggles.

“You are _not_ five centimeters taller than me.”

“I am! I measured.”

“When?”

“When I was seventeen, you jealous prick.”

“I’m going to drop you.”

“Don’t drop him,” Roger whines as Brian drags him into the elevator.

Freddie rolls his eyes as he and John stumble in after them. He props his friend up against the corner. “Well, darlings,” he says flatly, “this was great.”

“You’re not leaving us, are you?”

“I’ve got to put John to bed.”

Roger and John immediately start protesting loudly.

“No, I don’t want to—”

“Let us at least talk! We’ll be good, even. We don’t—”

“You’re not the boss of me, Freddie. And furthermore—”

“—have so much to—”

“It’s probably best that they don’t go unsupervised, isn’t it?” Brian asks softly. “I don’t want either of them to choke on their own sick or something like that, and they’ll be easier to watch if they’re together. Especially if they behave,” he adds pointedly.

“We will,” Roger says immediately. “We just want to talk. That’s it. We need to talk about everything.”

John nods earnestly, his eyes wide.

Freddie sighs. “Alright, fine. Whose room?”

“Brian’s,” Roger says immediately. “Cake.”

“Cake?”

“VidCon bought me this massive birthday cake,” Brian explains quickly. “No idea why.”

Right. Because it’s Brian’s birthday. Freddie made Brian cry in public, over a misunderstanding, on his _birthday_ , which he hadn’t remembered in the first place.

Yeah. He only hates himself a little.

The minute they enter Brian’s room John and Roger settle on the sofa, facing each other criss-cross with their knees pressed together, and begin talking rapidly over one another. Freddie immediately places two bottles of water beside them.

“Drink these,” he says.

John doesn’t even argue, cracking his open and chugging half of it while Roger babbles at him all the while.

Brian just shakes his head, tapping away at his phone. “Cake?” he offers Freddie, gesturing at the remnants of what was clearly once a massive showpiece.

Freddie smiles wryly. “Please. Do you mind if I use your coffee machine?”

“Will you make me some?”

“Sure thing,” he says, crossing to the bathroom to fill the pot with water.

The bathroom sink is literally surrounded with bottles of different hair products. Freddie skims them as he fills the pot from the tap. He has no idea how Brian got them through airport security. He must have had an extra suitcase for all of the bottles alone. For some reason the thought makes him smile.

By the time he comes back into the room Brian has connected his phone to the Bluetooth speaker on the nightstand, an old Dire Straights album filling in the silence between their friends’ murmurs.

“I’m making coffee for you guys,” Freddie tells them.

“Thanks, Fred,” Roger says.

“You’re welcome, blondie.” He fills the machine carefully and hits start. Brian is leaning against the dresser, and Freddie hip-checks him lightly. “Think they’re gonna kill each other?” he asks under his breath.

“I think they’re a little past it at this point, though there is still time,” Brian murmurs. He crosses behind Freddie to the balcony door, sliding it open and letting the cool night air roll into the room. “We should give them a little space.”

Freddie frowns, looking over his shoulder. The two of them are leaning sideways against the backrest of the sofa, their faces inches apart and their fingers tangled together. Roger is crying, expressionless as if he doesn’t realize he’s doing it, but somehow he doesn’t seem sad.

“Alright,” Freddie murmurs. “Yeah.”

He deposits two mugs and some cake on the table beside the sofa before settling outside on one of the chairs, his own mug cradled in his hands. The fresh air does wonders to clear his head, and the city seems almost peaceful from this far away. It throws him back to standing on the balcony at the observatory, Brian warm and pliant in his arms, and he sighs.

A second later Brian follows with the remainder of the cake. He juggles the items in his hands for a second before managing to close the screen door behind himself, and Freddie hides a laugh.

“You got it?” he asks him.

“Yeah,” Brian says with a smile, sitting down on the deck chair beside him. He clinks his mug against Freddie’s own. “To the end of all that in there?”

“To your birthday,” Freddie says. He manages to twist his mouth into a semblance of a smile. “I’m sorry I ruined it. I know I’m an utter asshole, but I genuinely had no idea. With everything going on I completely forgot about it.”

“It’s okay,” Brian says gently. “I almost forgot it myself.”

Freddie shakes his head. “That’s not all,” he says. “I’m sorry that I didn’t even bother having a conversation with you about everything before I acted. I know what kind of person you are. I know that you wouldn’t do something like that, but I cut you off without even thinking about it. That was my mistake. John’s like a little brother to me,” he adds quickly when Brian makes to open his mouth, “and he hasn’t always had an easy time of it, you know, so when he gets hurt I tend to act without thinking.”

“That’s alright, Freddie,” Brian says. “I get it. Besides, I’m not without blame in this, you know.”

“You’re more than—”

“No, hear me out,” Brian insists. “I was so ready to write you off, as well. I was so ready to try to move on.”

“But you didn’t,” Freddie says quickly.

“But I thought about it. I was going to. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’d run into John by chance this morning and what he told me about what happened didn’t make sense—if it wasn’t for that I would’ve. I wouldn’t have given you a second chance, either. We both moved too quickly.”

Freddie lets out a long breath through his nose. “Let’s change that, then,” he says levelly. “You and I—let’s try to be more honest about what we want; about what we’re feeling. I want to be honest with you.”

“And I want to be honest with you,” Brian replies, holding his gaze. “I—god, Freddie. I want to date you. I want to get to know you, away from all of this _bullshit._ ” He blinks hard, glancing out at the skyline, and Freddie’s heart clenches when he realizes he’s blinking back frustrated tears. “When this is over, when we’re back in London, I want to spend real time with you. I want to give you all the time that I can, away from where people are watching everything we do. Just us, you and me.”

“Look at you,” Freddie breathes, and Brian’s gaze snaps back to his. “Sweet thing. You’re breaking my heart, darling. Do you know that?”

Brian sighs, long and slow, and blinks hard.

“Of course I’ll give you that,” Freddie murmurs. “Let’s start over, huh? This city is driving us mad. Let’s start at the beginning.”

“Yes,” Brian sighs. “Yes, alright. We’ll start from scratch.”

Freddie smiles at him, his chest warming when Brian immediately returns it. He reaches into his pocket, digging through it until his hand closes around the box of matches he’d pilfered from the club. He pulls one out, striking it and sticking the wooden end into the cake.

Brian laughs. “What are you doing?”

“For your birthday. I’m making up for it.”

“It’s one in the morning. It’s not my birthday anymore.”

“It still is in…I don’t know. Alaska, maybe. Go on and make a wish.”

Brian snorts. “I think you already know what I’m going to wish for,” he says teasingly.

Freddie’s heart leaps, and he grins. “That certainly doesn’t mean it won’t come true. Blow it out before it lights the whole table on fire.”

Brian laughs and blows it out, sending smoke twirling through the air.

They stay out on the balcony until the coffee and cake are gone and the album has begun to repeat itself. It’s only then that they poke their heads into the room to see John and Roger curled up on the sofa, half on top of each other and dead asleep.

Freddie sighs to himself. “It’s going to be a pain and a half to move them,” he mutters.

“We might as well leave them, then,” Brian reasons quietly, and when Freddie looks at him in surprise he shifts on his feet. “That is—I mean, it’ll be easier to watch them if they’re together, anyway, and…”

“I can’t ask you to babysit the two of them on your own,” Freddie says slowly.

Brian licks his lips. “Stay, then,” he offers quietly. “Even if it’s just for a little longer.”

Freddie really can’t say no to that.

The sofa already occupied, they settle on Brian’s bed. The room is barely illuminated when Brian turns out the lamp, the only light cast by the city far below the window. Somehow it feels safer, like this—like he could bare his soul and Brian wouldn’t judge him for it.

“Do you think they’re going to be alright in the morning?” Freddie whispers. “That they’ll still want to talk?”

“If they don’t want to then I’ll force them to,” Brian huffs out.

Freddie hesitates around his next question. “Do you think we’ll be alright in the morning?”

Brian is silent for a long moment. He shifts around on the mattress, leaning back slightly against the headboard, and Freddie can just about make out the shine of his eyes in the darkness. “I hope we will,” Brian whispers.

Freddie sighs quietly. He leans forward, and when Brian doesn’t make to move away he closes the distance finally, bracing his hands against Brian’s chest and kissing him long and slow. He can feel Brian sighing contentedly through his nose, his long fingers coming up to cradle Freddie’s waist and hold him steady, his grip gentle as if he’s not sure that it’s wanted.

He’s close enough to watch the way that Brian’s eyes stay closed even after he pulls away, his lips still parted on a gasp. His eyelids flutter open after a long second, and he watches Freddie with an expression that Freddie isn’t sure how to parse.

Freddie doesn’t say anything. He just crawls closer until he can curl up against Brian’s chest, their heads side-by-side on the pillow propped against the headboard. He smells good, like cologne and fresh air and sweat, and somehow it’s deeply comforting. Freddie already knows that he’s going to wake up with a horrible cramp in his neck, but with Brian’s arm wrapped around his shoulders and his own body moving with every breath that Brian takes, he can hardly find it in himself to care.

Between the warm darkness of the room, the drink still making his head spin and the comfort of having contented people nearby, he drifts off almost faster than he thought was possible.

It’s dawn when he wakes up.

Brian is still asleep, his face soft and relaxed and painted in greys and purples by the light outside and his black eye almost mistakable for a shadow. He’s breathing quick and shallow, dead to the world. When Freddie kisses his cheek he doesn’t even stir.

“He’s got insomnia,” a voice whispers across the room.

Roger is shuffling on the sofa, trying to break free from the gangly arms thrown around him and the extra duvet thrown over the whole pile. John is drooling against the armrest, or at least Freddie is pretty sure he is; he can’t really see him well, between the brunet hair thrown over his face and the man trying his best to escape his hold.

“When he does manage to sleep he doesn’t tend to wake up easily,” Roger continues. “Especially after drinks.”

“John is the same way,” Freddie whispers. “He’s useless before nine. You’re not leaving him, are you? He’ll panic, you know.”

“Of course not,” Roger replies quickly. “I don’t remember everything, but I remember enough. We need to talk.” He frowns as he looks at the way Freddie is sitting up. “Why? Where are you going?”

“To fetch breakfast,” Freddie says. “Room service is getting old. There’s something else I need to grab from my room, anyway.”

“Can I come with you?”

Freddie frowns. “You’re sure you want to?”

“Yeah. The sooner I eat something, the better off I’ll be. I want to be ready when he wakes up,” he adds, nodding at John.

Freddie hums uncertainly. “Alright,” he says. “Let him know, will you? God, I need to grab a shower. I feel like death.”

“Ditto,” Roger huffs.

“Okay, ten minutes and then we meet in my room. Sound good?”

“Yeah.” Roger leans over John, and Freddie looks away as he pecks him on the lips. “Honey?”

John groans under his breath.

Freddie crawls across the mattress, careful not to jostle his bedmate. He winces at the feeling in his knees. God, but sleeping in jeans never treats him well.

“Me and Freddie are just going to get you guys some breakfast, okay? I’ll be back before you know it. You can sleep in.”

“Gotta talk,” John mutters.

Freddie pauses when he sees a familiar piece of paper on the nightstand, the tiny colored squares cast in monotone in the morning light.

“When we get back. How about that?” Roger whispers.

Pausing, Freddie pulls out his phone and types into google rapidly.

“I’ll miss you,” John sighs, curling into the sofa, and he hears Roger huff out a laugh.

“I’ll miss you too. Get some sleep.”

Freddie grabs the hotel pen off the nightstand, jotting something down quickly on the little scrap of paper.

“Ready, Freddie?” Roger whispers.

“Yeah,” Freddie says distractedly. He adds a few more scribbles and then tucks the paper carefully under Brian’s phone so that he can find it easily when he wakes up. “Yeah, let’s go.”

“Come on, then.”

He stands quickly, hesitating for a long beat before ducking forward to kiss Brian’s cheek again. “I’ll see you in a bit, darling,” he whispers.

Brian sighs in his sleep.

Silently, he and Roger creep out. The light from the hallway shines brightly into the room as they open the door, and he makes a point to close it quickly behind them, holding the latch so that it shuts soundlessly. Without another word they leave their friends behind in the darkness, making quickly for the elevators.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well! Things we expected? Things we didn't? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! 
> 
> A big thank you to all of you, now that we're approaching the end. I really didn't expect this thing to get the response it did, let alone to end up writing more than the three chapters I originally had planned. Thank you so much for all of your support and your kindness, because it's truly what makes me and writers like me keep doing what they're doing. You're awesome and I love ya! 
> 
> I hope that you're all hanging in there and that you're well <3 all the best!


	9. Chapter 9

He wakes sometime in the night, his jeans pinching at the backs of his knees uncomfortably. He hardly minds, and he certainly can’t find it within himself to move—not with the warm weight of a body in his arms and the smell of Freddie’s shampoo tickling his nose. He can only curl closer and shut his eyes, willing himself back to sleep.

When he wakes up for real, hours later, it’s to find that Freddie is already gone.

His chest sinks at the knowledge. He reaches out to feel the sheets beside him, but they’re already cold. Wherever Freddie went, he must have left ages ago.

He sits up a little in bed, looking around the room. The sun is just barely beginning to rise, the drapes still open from the night before. His sofa is occupied, and when he squints at the shape of the blankets in the dim light it takes him a minute to recognize the lump there as John; Roger is already gone too, then.

He shakes his head and then instantly regrets it, pain blooming behind his right eye. He reaches up gingerly to cradle his own forehead and then hisses as his fingers make contact with his cheek.

Right. He got punched in the face last night.

He rolls out of bed and hobbles into the bathroom to inspect the damage. He winces as he flicks the light on, the brightness of it burning his eyes. In the room behind him he just barely hears John grunt, and he shuts the door behind himself quickly before looking at his own reflection.

Yeah. It’s bruised, alright.

The space beneath his eye is a deep purple, stretching around into the skin just below his eyebrow. He prods at it and only just manages not to wince at the pain. Even if he’d brought all the makeup he owns, he has no idea how he’s going to cover that up.

He shakes his head, turning to the shower. He’s certainly not going to look his best today, but the least he can do is feel clean.

He takes his time with it, scrubbing away the sweat and lingering smells of the club off his skin and carefully conditioning his hair. By the time he steps out the room is full of steam and he feels moderately better. He avoids the mirror as he dresses quickly, towel drying his hair as he opens the door.

John isn’t up, but he’s at least upright. He’s sitting on the couch, chugging a bottle of water as if his life depends on it. When he sees Brian he winces.

“I thought the fight was a bad dream.”

Brian scoffs out a laugh. “How are you feeling?”

“Better than I thought I would,” he says with a grimace. “Especially after a night like that. How’d we even get back?”

“You don’t remember?” Brian asks him, settling on the foot of the bed to keep drying his hair.

John shrugs. “I remember sitting in here last night. You and Fred took care of us. Thanks for that,” he adds earnestly. “I’d probably be a lot worse off if it wasn’t for you guys.”

“It’s no problem,” Brian says, fidgeting awkwardly. “We came back in a lyft. You and Roger didn’t want to be apart, so all four of us came back up here together.”

“Me and Roger,” John says quietly. “Did we talk?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure how much.” Brian pauses, letting the towel fall into his lap. “John, before you talk to him today I’ve really got to tell you that whatever happened, it wasn’t—”

“I know,” John says quickly. “You didn’t know, did you? I understand that now, at least, even if me and him still have to talk about it. I’m sorry for yesterday.”

“I don’t blame you,” Brian says. “I would’ve done the same.”

“You wouldn’t have,” John says.

“Well—okay, I wouldn’t have done _exactly_ the same, but I get where you were coming from. I know it’s hard to—I don’t know. To be vulnerable, I guess. Especially with him.”

John blinks at him, his face carefully impassive. “Did you two…that is, were you ever together?”

“No,” Brian says quickly. “God, no. Never. We’ve only ever been friends, and that’s the way we like to keep it. He’s just…” He trails off, gathering his words carefully. “He’s the kind of person who makes you want to be more. To be better, I guess. And it’s ridiculous in the end, because he’ll love you regardless of who you are. He’s like that. It doesn’t stop us from wanting to be better, though. To be more.”

John purses his lips. “Are you telling me to trust him, then? That it’ll all be okay? I don’t know if I really believe you.”

Brian laughs. “John, of course it’ll be okay. It already is.”

John blinks again, shocked silent. He doesn’t say a word, and Brian smiles at him sadly before shuffling backward on the bed, leaning against the headboard and reaching for his phone.

“You don’t have anything to worry about either, you know,” John says finally.

Brian looks up. “What?”

“About Freddie,” John murmurs. “He kept falling silent the last few days. He gets lost in his head when he’s regretting something.” At Brian’s confused expression his lips quirk up, and he raises his water bottle to his lips in a parody of a toast. “He missed you.”

“Now you’re just flattering me,” Brian says pointedly.

John rolls his eyes, but he ruins it by smiling. “Got any mouthwash?”

“In there,” Brian says, gesturing to the bathroom as John stands. “Don’t use my toothbrush.”

“Like I’d want to.”

Brian huffs a laugh, reaching for his phone and turning it over in his hand. He pauses as he looks down at it.

A familiar piece of paper is stuck to the screen.

He turns it over gingerly, rubbing it between his fingers. It’s the tiny slip of paper that had come with Freddie’s mood ring. Little colored boxes coordinate with explanations, helpfully provided in Spanish, German and Chinese, of all things. The two of them speak none of the above.

Freddie had apparently gone the extra mile.

The light yellow box, the one the two of them had been squinting at that entire afternoon, is circled with ballpoint pen. Distantly, Brian remembers grabbing Freddie’s slim hand in his own and raising the ring closer to his face, squinting at the yellow dolphins and commenting on them mockingly in poorly pronounced German.

Freddie had simply tutted at him, turning his hand in Brian’s grip to brush down the side of his face before freeing himself from his grasp entirely.

_Liebevoll_ , the caption reads. _Enamorado._ There’s an arrow drawn in with pen, pointing to Freddie’s cursive along one of the margins. _In love._ Beside it is a sloppy smiley face and a heart.

Brian just stares at it, worrying the edges of the paper between his fingers.

His afternoon with Freddie had been a dream come true. He hadn’t been so happy in—he doesn’t know in how long. Years, maybe. He’d never felt so absorbed in another person. He’d never felt so recognized, so loved and _seen._

He’d thought that he’d lost it all.

He had practically run up to his room when Freddie had left him in the elevator that night, rushing to get ready. He’d wiped off his makeup, let his hair down and fussed over his roots for a long moment. He’d shucked Roger’s jacket and his dark clothes and then slaved over what to wear—what would be the most comfortable, the most presentable, the most _him._

He wanted to be himself, in a moment like this. He wanted nothing between the two of them: no personas, no false bravado, no disguises. Nothing.

But it hadn’t mattered, a moment later. He’d still been staring at the clothes spilling out of his suitcase when he’d gotten Freddie’s text.

He wants nothing more than to hold onto him, or even the possibility of him. After everything, he wants nothing more than to try again.

He’s startled out of his stupor by John coming back into the room.

“What’s that?” he asks, frowning at the paper in Brian’s hand.

Brian puts it down on the nightstand quickly. “Nothing.”

“Mmh,” John sighs. He settles back on the sofa, finger-combing his hair carefully. “No headlines about us today?”

“I’m almost scared to check.” Brian fiddles with his phone for a long moment. “It’s never anything good, you know? Best not to look.”

“Heard about your affair.”

“Yeah,” Brian says with a wry smile. “Bad news, all that. I hope they forget it.”

John hums. “Hopefully we can take the heat from you guys. As long as Roger still even wants to do this, that is. To be with me.”

“Of course he will,” Brian says immediately.

John just raises his eyebrows. He’s saved from replying by a knock on the door. Brian stands immediately and hurries over to it, throwing it open.

Roger grins from behind his sunglasses. “Nice face.”

“Prettier than yours,” Brian says instantly, the response practically conditioned into him.

“Dick. I’ve got food.” He pushes past Brian into the room. “Deaky! There’s the light of my world.”

Brian shakes his head, turning back to the hallway, and there’s Freddie.

His hair is neatly washed and blow dried. He isn’t wearing a full face of makeup today. Instead he’s sporting a graceful line of smudged eyeliner, the shadow of it bringing out the sparkles in the dark brown of his eyes. He smiles as he looks at Brian, shyness lingering in the curves of his lips.

Brian’s heart melts a little.

He barely has a moment to take him in before Freddie is crowding into his space, juggling multiple bags in one hand while he cradles Brian’s cheek with the other. “You poor thing,” he coos. “Oh, darling. That bruise really came in overnight, didn’t it?”

Brian winces. “That bad?”

“I think it makes you look tough,” Freddie murmurs. He hesitates, his thumb brushing Brian’s lower lip and his eyes flicking down to watch, before he ducks forward to press a kiss to his mouth. It’s over almost as fast as it began, and Brian can do nothing but blink as Freddie pushes past him into the room. “We went down the street a ways. Some vegan place, I don’t know. Crystal was there.”

“Surprise, surprise,” Roger says, tumbling over the armrest of the sofa to land in John’s lap. John yelps even as his cheeks immediately go pink, his mouth quirking up into a surprised smile.

“Crystal?” Brian asks to the room at large.

“Crystal Taylor,” Freddie says, as if that clarifies anything.

Roger rolls his eyes. “Chris,” he says. “You know, the dude who apparently works at every single restaurant in Los Angeles?”

“His name is Crystal now?”

“He looks like a Crystal,” Freddie says dismissively. “Anyway, Marlena ended up sending him a booty call, so apparently last night wasn’t entirely for naught.”

“…Marlena?” Brian asks.

“That bartender he likes,” Freddie says. He sits down at the foot of Brian’s bed, settling cross-legged on the throw blanket before patting the space across from him. “Sit.”

Brian does, mirroring Freddie’s position warily as Roger and John begin chatting on the sofa. Freddie just grins at him before turning to root through a lunchbox-sized canvas case that Brian distantly recognizes as some sort of fancy makeup bag.

“Are you going to fix my…” Brian trails off, gesturing at his own eye.

Freddie pauses. “Can I? I thought you might appreciate avoiding the stares during your events today.”

Brian lets out a breath. “I’d owe you big time.”

“I can think of a few ways you can pay me back,” Freddie murmurs with a teasing smile, pulling out some sort of creamy palette in pastel greens and yellows, and Brian’s cheeks heat. “Alright, then. Let’s see what we can do for you, huh?”

It’s the same intimacy as the last time they did this, but not. It’s a little different now—now that Brian knows that his touch won’t be rejected, or at least that he’s moderately sure of it; now that he knows that Freddie feels something toward him, even if Brian isn’t sure how to quantify it.

_Liebevoll_ _._ That’s potentially the closest that he can come.

“Let’s see what’s going on, darling,” Freddie murmurs to him, dipping the brush in the green paste. He pauses to look up at Brian, examining his face carefully. He grips his chin gently to turn Brian’s cheek toward the light, and Brian’s blood fizzes at the contact.

“It’s not pretty,” Brian mumbles.

Freddie just lets out a tsk, holding Brian’s jaw steady as he begins brushing the product carefully over his bruise. “You’re always pretty,” he murmurs, then frowns when Brian hisses at the contact. “Sorry. I’ll do my best to be gentle.”

“’S’okay,” Brian breathes. Between Freddie’s dark eyes fixed on his own and the warmth of his hand against his cheek, he feels a little like he’s mentally wading through jell-o.

“Freddie, which one’s yours?” Roger calls.

“The potato one,” Freddie calls distractedly, re-dipping his brush. “Bri, we got you some sort of—”

“I don’t really know what it is.”

“It’s like a panini but with only vegetables? I’m not really sure what goes in a vegan breakfast sandwich but they should be good. You can trade with me if you don’t like yours. We got fruit, too.”

“Thank you,” Brian says earnestly, his eyes fluttering closed as Freddie brushes along his eyelid. Like this he can focus solely on Freddie’s touch and the sounds of his voice, and the peace of it sinks into him.

“Of course,” Freddie murmurs. The brush disappears, and then something is tapping his lips. “Open up.”

Brian frowns, opening his mouth hesitantly. A moment later he hums as what tastes like a strawberry is pressed between his lips.

Freddie kisses his cheek before going back to work with the brush. Brian cracks his eyes open to watch him: the furrow between his brows, the way his lips are parted in focus, the careful movements of his hands.

“You were so brave last night,” Freddie murmurs under his breath as he works.

Brian squirms. “Fat lot of good it did anyone,” he mutters.

“Oh, none of that. It would’ve gone south one way or another. You know that.”

Brian just shakes his head slightly as Freddie lets go of him, pulling out a bottle of foundation and swiping a smear onto Brian’s neck to check the color. “I have you to thank, if anything,” Brian says to him quietly, swallowing when Freddie’s eyes flick up to meet his own. “You’re the brave one.”

Freddie shrugs. “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing? I seem to remember you slugging a guy in the stomach for me.”

“You did that, Fred?” John pipes up from across the room.

“He was a boxer,” Freddie says defensively. “I could tell by his posture. I wasn’t about to let him come after poor Brian like that.”

“Poor me?” Brian asks. “He had to have three stone on you, at least.”

“Freddie used to box, though,” John supplies.

Brian blinks. He turns back to Freddie, who’s ignoring them both in favor of fiddling with his brushes. “Seriously?” Brian asks him.

Freddie rolls his eyes. “Oh, don’t sound so surprised. I just did it as an extracurricular, anyway.”

“He was good,” John says.

“He was?” Roger asks.

“The best in school,” John nods solemnly. “He could go three matches in a row without getting hit once. He’s quick.”

“How did I not…” Brian starts. “You never talk about that.”

“Why would I?” Freddie asks, skeptical.

Brian opens his mouth, at a loss for words. All he can think of is Freddie waling on a punching bag, and he’s still trying to rectify it with the image of Freddie that lives permanently in his brain: Freddie in flowing shirts, Freddie with paint-stained fingers, Freddie who can list every shade of eyeshadow on every Urban Decay palette from memory.

“I don’t really advertise it,” Freddie says, as if reading his mind. “It doesn’t quite coincide with my whole image, now does it, dear?”

“Who cares about that?” Brian asks, still struggling to focus.

Roger snorts. “What even _is_ image?”

“I have no idea,” John says.

“These people seem to care about it a good deal,” Freddie points out.

John shrugs. “Fuck ‘em.”

Freddie just raises his eyebrows, shaking his head slightly. He puts his brush down finally, gripping Brian’s chin with gentle fingers and tilting his head this way and that. “Well,” he murmurs, “I think that’ll about take care of it.”

“You sure?” Brian asks him.

“Mmh.” Freddie leans a little closer, and something about it makes him dizzy. His thumb traces over Brian’s cheek as he turns his head closer to the light by the window. “You should probably check it in the bathroom just to be sure. Sometimes fluorescents do odd things to stuff like this. I think it should be alright, though.”

Brian finds himself frowning slightly at that, pressing into Freddie’s touch. It takes him a long moment to place the source of his own unhappiness: he doesn’t _want_ Freddie to be done; not yet. He’d much rather sit here for the rest of the morning, with Freddie’s face close to his own and his hands cradling his cheeks.

Freddie’s eyes flit down to his mouth and back, his lips quirking up. He must know. Surely he must have figured out what is on Brian’s mind—he must have realized why he’s lingering, why he’s so determined to stay in place.

If he’s figured it out, though, he doesn’t say anything about it. He just keeps watching Brian intently, his touch migrating from Brian’s cheek to the side of his scalp, toying with the curls there. Brian sighs at the feeling, his eyes dipping shut, and hears Freddie laugh quietly.

“Don’t fall back asleep on me,” Freddie chides softly.

“Don’t _make_ me,” Brian replies, his words a little more slurred than he’d intended, and Freddie laughs again.

The morning slides by, his own wakefulness establishing itself more fully the longer they sit there. He settles next to Freddie on the bed, facing the others, and watches as John and Roger go from giddy flirting to playful bickering to somber, thoughtful silence, carrying on conversation with the group at large but not necessarily addressing each other. It makes him shift next to Freddie uncomfortably, caught in the idea that it might not be over quite yet.

Finally, Freddie glances at his phone screen. “Small groups this morning, huh?” he says.

“Mine’s at ten,” Brian offers. “I should probably get going.”

He doesn’t think that he’s imagining the way that Freddie looks sad at the thought.

“I’ll catch you later,” Roger tells him. “Dinner, maybe?”

“Dinner, yeah,” Brian sighs. “If you guys want to come, that is.”

Freddie straightens. “That is—oh, you mean—yeah, certainly. We’d love to.”

John blinks at him. “Yeah,” he says slowly, his voice somehow pointed as he holds Freddie’s gaze. “Sounds good.”

Freddie huffs, and John’s eyebrows go up. Brian looks between the two of them, then looks at Roger, who rolls his eyes. He raises his eyebrows in question, tilting his head toward John. Roger grimaces and shakes his head.

“Well,” Freddie says suddenly, standing and breaking the four of them from their silence. John hurries to follow. “Brian, best of luck. I’ll see you later.”

“I’ll see you, yeah,” Brian says, watching the two of them as they trail toward the door.

“Thanks for looking out for us last night,” John says earnestly. “It meant a lot.”

“Course.”

“See you, John,” Roger says.

“Yeah,” John replies with a smile, sadness still lingering in the corners.

Brian waits until the door shuts behind them to turn to Roger. “So what’s going on, then?”

Roger sighs. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“No…?” Brian says.

“We haven’t talked yet. About last night,” he clarifies. “Or yesterday, or the day before, or…whatever.”

“I thought you guys worked it out,” Brian says with a frown.

Roger rolls his eyes. “Yeah, last night. I barely remember what we even said. We still need to talk it through.”

“And you can’t, because…”

“Well he’s gone now, isn’t he?”

“Roger,” Brian says tiredly, “go after him.”

Roger blinks. “Now? But—”

“But what? Just go. Sort it out.”

Roger blinks again, then a third time. Then, all at once, he runs out of the room, the door slamming behind him.

Brian just sighs and shakes his head, gathering his things and preparing to head downstairs. “Clowns,” he mutters to the empty room.

Small groups go blessedly well, especially after the awkward introductions of the first session. Their time flies by faster than he’d expected, even with all that’s on his mind and the siren’s call of the knowledge that Freddie is in one of the rooms next door.

“So that’s all that I really can tell you,” Brian says finally as he glances at his watch and sees that their time is almost up. Before him, the group shifts. “I hope that this helped and that you’ve at least got some knowledge to take away out of all of this. I’ve learned a lot from all of you as well and had a great time meeting you guys.”

“You’re such a teacher, Brian,” one of the girls says.

A boy snorts at the back. “You can take the man out of school…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Brian replies, allowing himself a grin as he waves them away. “Have a great rest of your day, and enjoy these last few events of the con.”

“Thanks, Brian.”

“Great to meet you!”

“Learned a lot.”

He shuffles as he watches them all file out, gathering his things from the table in front of him. He’s the last out of the door, and he closes it behind him with an air of finality before turning back toward the hallway.

He practically jumps out of his skin when he notices someone standing there.

“Fuck,” he breathes, clutching at his chest despite himself. “You scared me.”

“Sorry,” Peaches says with a gentle smile, wincing slightly to herself, and he can tell right off the bat that her shyness isn’t an act. “I was hoping to get you alone.”

He blanches. “I really can’t—”

“Relax,” she says quickly, her smile growing. “I’m not gonna come onto you again. I wouldn’t have last night if I knew that you’re taken.”

“Nobody said I’m taken,” he rushes to say. “Where’d you read that? The tabloids? It’s not—”

“ _Relax,_ Brian,” she says again, this time more firmly. “Alright? It’s okay. I didn’t need to read it anywhere. The minute I saw you look at him I knew it was true.”

His mouth goes dry as she eyes him up and down. He wants to defend himself—to deny it, maybe—but he can’t find the words.

“I won’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re afraid of,” she says finally. “I swear it. You guys…you’ve already been in the limelight enough this weekend, haven’t you? You’ve hardly gotten a break, let alone time to get to know each other. It isn’t right.”

“He and I aren’t together,” he gets out, as a last-ditch attempt.

She just shakes her head. “Alright. Just know that I’m not going to cause any trouble for either of you. I really, truly hope that you and he work it out, and that you have a wonderful future ahead of you. I get the sense that you do.”

He swallows hard, hesitating. “I,” he starts, then pauses as she gives him a knowing smile. “Thanks,” he murmurs. “It means a lot.”

“You’re welcome. I mean it genuinely.” She flips her long blond hair over her shoulder, turning as if about to start down the hallway, and then hesitates as she looks back at him. She gives him an appreciative once over, and he fights the urge to squirm. “I added you on Insta, by the way,” she says slowly. “If you two ever need a third, you know where to find me.”

He blinks at her.

She just winks, flipping her hair again before walking away, her hips swaying as she goes.

“What the hell,” he breathes to himself, shaking his head slightly.

“Indeed,” a voice says behind him.

He whips around to see Freddie leaning against the doorways of one of the conference rooms, his own small group session clearly having come to an end. He’s rubbing the fingertips of one hand together thoughtfully, the tiny nervous tic the only thing betraying the suave calm of his pose.

“Freddie,” he says quickly. “I wasn’t—we were just—”

“God, you’re jumpy today,” Freddie says with a tiny smile. “What’s gotten into you? I heard the whole thing, you know. I know you weren’t trying to _do anything._ ”

Brian swallows hard. “I thought you’d want—after last night—you know, I was just nervous that you thought she and I—”

“What?” he asks, raising a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “That you were going to run off with her or something? I trust you. Besides, you and I are far from exclusive,” he adds, looking away.

The insecurity of it is what catches Brian’s attention. He looks him over carefully, his eyes lingering on his suddenly flighty gaze and the fidgeting of his fingers. “Do you want to be?” he says, barely above a whisper.

“Hmm?” Freddie asks, frowning.

He clears his throat. “I said do you want to be?”

Freddie’s eyes widen.

“Exclusive, that is.”

Freddie looks up the hall. He turns and looks down the hall. It’s practically comical, and Brian would laugh if he had the time.

He doesn’t. Between one breath and the next Freddie steps forward across the narrow hallway, presses Brian backward against the door of the conference room and gropes for the doorknob until they both go tumbling through. He closes it behind them just as fast, and just like that his mouth is attached to Brian’s own.

Brian whines into it before he can help himself. His thighs hit the table hard, and he reaches behind him to steady himself even as Freddie continues to push forward until the two of them are pressed together, chest to hip, Freddie’s hands tangled in his hair to hold his head at whichever angle he pleases.

Freddie pulls away briefly to mouth at his neck. “Do I,” he breathes between kisses, “want to be exclusive? With you?”

“If you leave another love bite on my neck like last time—”

“What? All it’ll do is prove that you belong to someone. That you’re mine.”

Brian honest-to-god moans at that, before he can help himself. Freddie just laughs against his skin.

“You want that?”

“Of course I bloody want that. I’m the one who—”

Freddie all but lunges for his mouth again, kissing him hard and deep. Brian gets a grip on his hips just to turn him around slightly and the two of them go pin balling around the table, bumping into chairs and tripping against each other’s feet until finally Brian gets the advantage and manages to walk him backward against the table. Freddie grunts into his mouth as Brian gets his hands under the backs of his thighs and lifts, setting him on the edge of the table and stepping between his legs.

“So strong,” Freddie laughs.

“You weigh nothing,” Brian grunts. He’s already pressing closer to leave a matching mark beneath Freddie’s jaw, ignoring the giggles above him.

“Does that mean you’ll throw me around more often?”

“Do you _want_ me to?” Brian asks, pulling briefly away.

When he looks up at Freddie his lips are pink and kiss-bruised, his lipstick smeared slightly. His eyes are dark, and Brian can’t help the breath he sucks in at the intensity of them.

Freddie just smiles softly at him. “I want you,” he whispers, his lips curving upward, and Brian can’t help but smile back.

He ducks forward to kiss him, but this time he keeps it sweet. He savors the warmth of his mouth and the taste of him; savors the way Freddie sighs against his cheek, his wrists resting on Brian’s shoulders lazily. He sucks in a gasp when Brian thumbs over his hip bones and Brian swallows the sound, stifling a smile over how lovely he is—over how lovely _this_ is, this moment right here.

And then he hears footsteps in the hallway, and he freezes.

He has just enough time to step away from Freddie rapidly. Freddie looks at him with wide eyes, sliding off the desk and doing his best to hide the rather obvious bulge at the front of his flares, before the door is opening on silent hinges.

A group of con-goers walks in, chatting amongst themselves, freezing as they catch sight of Freddie and Brian.

Freddie barely misses a beat. “You’re such a _prick,”_ he shouts dramatically. “You think you know everything, but you don’t!”

It takes Brian a beat to catch up, and he only hopes that the con-goers don’t notice. “I know a hell of a lot more than you,” he tries, doing his best to make his tone sound angry and harsh.

“Not about this! You really think you can lecture _me_ on makeup of all things! _Me!_ ”

“You’re just too prideful to understand that sometimes someone else might know more than you,” Brian replies testily, wracking his brain for anything he’s picked up from Freddie’s channel. “Just because I happen to know that mixing brands isn’t always bad—”

And he has to stifle a laugh when he sees real anger make itself known in Freddie’s eyes for the first time. “Mixing brands,” he hisses.

“Yeah,” Brian says innocently. “What’s really wrong with it, anyway? I think you’re just stuck up, honestly.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Freddie says, his voice rising. “What’s _wrong_ with it?! Do you mix oils and acrylics too, you uncultured buffoon?”

“Guys?” one of the con-goers says hesitantly. “Sorry to interrupt, but—”

“First of all, the only makeup artists you’ll ever catch _mixing brands_ are people who don’t have the right skin tone but don’t want you to know it. Second off, are you—God, Brian. I can’t believe you’re—”

“We really need the room,” the con-goer says apologetically.

“Fine!” Freddie snaps, marching toward the door. “Fine. God.”

Brian follows after him quickly. “Sorry,” he calls over his shoulder.

“No problem,” the con-goer replies, still wincing.

Brian just smiles to himself as he follows Freddie to the elevator. Freddie, for his part, is still stomping along. When he gets to the elevator bay he punches the button with the back of his fist.

“Alright, Fred?” Brian asks innocently.

“Good show,” Freddie mutters.

“You know I didn’t mean it, right?”

“Then why’d you do it?”

“Cause I knew it’d piss you off,” Brian says with a laugh.

Freddie rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Mission accomplished.” The elevator arrives with a pleasant ding, Freddie stomping through, Brian following him and trying to stifle his own laughter. It doesn’t exactly work; Freddie catches his gaze in the mirror, his own expression darkening further when he sees Brian’s face.

Brian gives it up, letting his own laughter slip. “Freddie,” he starts.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Freddie says, but his own mouth is twitching now.

Nobody is visible outside, and Brian takes it as an opportunity to tap his fingers against the soft skin of the inside of Freddie’s wrist. Freddie huffs and jerks his hand away, and Brian cackles.

“Freddie,” Brian murmurs, schooling his face quickly. The doors slide closed in front of them, the elevator lurching into motion. “Freddie,” he says again, softer. “I didn’t mean to piss you off.”

“Yes you did.”

“Okay, yes, I did,” he amends, “but if anything it’s only a sign of how closely I follow your work that I know how to.”

Freddie rolls his eyes. “You watch my work exclusively to figure out more ways to annoy me.”

“It goes both ways,” Brian points out.

“Just like I knew that pretending to be mad at you would annoy _you_?”

“I’m not—” Brian pauses as his words sink in. “Wait…”

A smile slips through Freddie’s irritated demeanor.

“And to think, here I am apologizing to you—”

“You’re very cute when you’re trying to make it up to me.”

“Prick.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“You’re the one that called me an ‘uncultured buffoon,’” he says disbelievingly.

“I didn’t mean it.”

“Hhm.”

“Bri,” Freddie says, turning to him. The elevator dings as they reach Freddie’s floor, but Freddie doesn’t get out. “Brimi.”

“I don’t believe you,” Brian says haughtily.

“Let me make it up to you,” Freddie murmurs.

It’s hard to keep up this act; god, is it hard. He can feel his own walls cracking as he tries not to grin.

“Come on, love,” Freddie breathes, stepping closer to him. The elevator dings angrily as the doors start to close, only for Freddie to reach behind himself and hit the open button without even looking.

“It’s quite rude,” Brian points out.

Freddie leans forward to nose at his jaw, brushing his lips against his throat sweetly when Brian turns his head away. “I’ll make it better.”

Brian huffs even as his head spins at the feeling. He can’t quite hide his own shiver, and he feels Freddie smile against his skin in response. The elevator lets out an angry screeching noise, the doors beginning to jerk closed again, and Freddie pushes a foot backward to keep them open.

“Come on,” Freddie murmurs. “You know I don’t mean it, anyway, don’t you? I never could.”

“Oh, you never could, could you?” Brian teases.

“There you go. Knew I could get a smile out of you.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

_“Brimi,”_ Freddie pleads.

The elevator lets out a pleasant ding, finally opening from around Freddie’s foot.

John is standing on the other side, Roger leaning against him with an elbow craning up uncomfortably to rest on his shoulder.

Brian straightens quickly, eyes widening as he taps Freddie’s waist twice. Freddie frowns, turning around.

“Is this a weird foreplay thing?” Roger asks tiredly.

“Alright, Rog?” Brian asks halfheartedly.

“Share the elevator, you fucking freaks,” Roger replies, stepping back to let he and Freddie out. “They’re gonna have to spray this thing down thanks to the two of you.”

“I’ve seen what you guys did to John’s room,” Freddie says flatly. “I don’t think you can really talk.”

“Glass house, Fred,” John says. He pauses as he steps into an elevator. “Are you coming down?”

Freddie frowns. “What?”

“For the thing,” John says. He grunts in annoyance as the door tries to close, wedging his body into the space to keep it open. “Whatever it is. Uh—”

“Farewell banquet,” Roger says. “For lunch.”

“Do we have to?” Freddie whines.

“They’ll skin us if we don’t, especially after our day off,” Brian points out.

Freddie groans. “But I wanted to—”

“Nope. Don’t finish that sentence,” John says quickly. The elevator screeches at him again, but he doesn’t react.

“We can, uh,” Brian starts. “Finish this later? I guess? Or pick it up later, I—”

“Yeah,” Freddie rushes. “Yeah, no, absolutely. We can—”

“My room?”

“Sure thing. I’d like to—”

“Guys,” John prompts over the sound of the elevator buzzing yet again. “Do you want to come with us or not?”

“Right.”

“Yep. Sure.”

The farewell banquet is, quite frankly, hell on earth.

For one, there’s the fact that seeing as the two of them are still pretending to be feuding, they can’t exactly spend any time near each other. John and Roger have no such qualms, immediately sitting next to each other at the long table set aside for creators at the front of the room. Brian sits on Roger’s other side, while Freddie sits on John’s.

It should guarantee that he doesn’t have a clear sightline of Freddie, but for some reason Freddie still manages to catch his eye every time he goes to lick ice cream off of his spoon.

Brian wants to jump out the window a little bit.

“How long are we supposed to be here?” he mutters to Roger.

Roger shrugs. “Not much longer. Relax. It’s practically the last event of the con.”

“There’s a thing tomorrow,” John points out from his other side.

“Yeah, but then it’s sign-out and then we’re done. The least you can do is soldier through.”

“Easy for you to say,” Brian mutters.

Freddie leans forward. “Don’t tell me you’re having trouble sitting still, Brian,” he says, his eyes glinting.

John mimes throwing up into his sorbet.

“Rich, coming from you,” Freddie says pointedly. “Am I to understand that you don’t remember what you said on the way back from the club, then?”

John’s cheeks flame abruptly. “I don’t think we need to revisit that.”

“Well…” Roger muses.

Freddie rolls his eyes. “Just get me out of here. When are we done?”

“Not soon enough,” Brian says, and Freddie groans.

But once the banquet blessedly ends there are meet and greets, and then there are hanger-ons, and Brian loves meeting fans and talking about his channel, he really does, but…

But he had plans.

When he finally manages to break free it’s to see that Freddie is completely captivated by a group of six or seven people, all of them talking to him rapidly. Brian sighs, trying to catch Freddie’s eyes, but it doesn’t quite work.

“Brian May?” a voice says in front of him, and when he turns it’s to see a young boy standing there. “I know it’s not quite what you’re here for, but I was wondering if you could answer a guitar question I’ve had for a while.”

“Yeah,” Brian says quickly, turning to give the kid his full attention. “Certainly. What would you like to know?”

He falls rapidly into the intricacies of everything from the fretboard to the phrygian scale. Time slips by, a few people stopping to greet him, and by the time the boy thanks him and bids him farewell the lobby is almost empty. Brian starts as he looks around, but Freddie is already gone.

“Looking for someone?” Roger calls from near the bar.

Brian shakes his head. “I lost track of time.”

“You and me both. Good day?”

“Pretty good, yeah. You?”

“I can’t complain,” Roger grunts, following him to the elevator bay. “Small groups was good, anyway. We spent the whole time talking shit about Bethesda.”

Brian snorts out a laugh. “Your dream.”

“Mmh. How about you?”

“You know. Typical stuff. We talked about mic specs for an hour, I got propositioned for a threesome, Freddie and I traumatized some teenagers…”

Roger stares at him. “What?” he asks faintly. “You mean you—and you and him—did they see you…you know…”

“They just walked in on us arguing. Not all of us are freaks,” he adds, carefully not pointing out the fact that had the group arrived seconds later it might’ve been a different story. His own cheeks heat at the though.

Roger just rolls his eyes. “Whatever. I’m sure you two can tell us more at dinner. Freddie wants to meet in an hour.”

Brian frowns at his reflection in the mirrored wall as they step into the elevator. “An hour?” he asks, his hands drifting up to fluff his hair.

“Relax. It’s more than enough time for you to preen. John and I have a whole conversation to cram into that time, so I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

“Conversation? Is that what they’re calling it these days?” he jokes.

Roger doesn’t laugh. He’s silent for a long beat—long enough that Brian turns to look at him, worriedly studying the furrow in his brow. “This might be more than you want to know,” Roger says slowly, “but we’re, uh. We’re taking things slow. Now. After everything.”

Brian blinks at him. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“I hope so, yeah. I hope that it means he’s in this for the long haul, but I don’t know. We’ve got a lot more to talk about.” The elevator drifts to a halt as it reaches John and Freddie’s floor, and Roger steps out. “Wish me luck.”

“I doubt you’ll need it,” Brian points out. “Look at my hair. Wish _me_ luck.”

Roger just snorts at him and turns down the hallway as the door closes.

Brian lets his head fall back against the mirror, looking at his reflection in the ceiling.

Somehow, despite spending nearly the entire day in his presence, he misses Freddie. He wonders briefly at that: that he can fall for someone so fast that he misses their presence just like that. His chest is churning with some dizzying combination of excitement and nerves for the night ahead, and it’s setting him on edge.

He wrestles out his room key as he reaches his own floor and practically bursts into his own room, immediately crouching down beside his suitcase and digging through it for something to wear. If he’s going to spend his whole night a nervous wreck, the least he can do is look his best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you believe that we're nearing the end of this? I certainly can't! 
> 
> Once again, thank you all for your continued support for this verse! I've been horrible about answering comments these last few weeks--I've had a few too many bad mental health days--but that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate every last bit of feedback I got from you all. It really means the world <3 
> 
> I didn't update this fic last week, but it was because I was busy polishing and publishing the first half of John and Roger's sides of this story! I did my best to keep it from being too repetitive and to make it new and fresh so that you guys don't get bored with it. Go check it out if you're interested!
> 
> That's all for now <3 love you guys!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, bitch. Bet you thought you saw the last of me.

Freddie’s day is torture, to say the least.

It had started strong. Waking up next to Brian had been a blessing. Brushing his makeup on in the morning, cradling his face in his hands, watching the way his eyes softened and went hazy when Freddie ducked close enough—it was all a dream.

Even talking to Roger that morning had been wonderful. It had certainly helped Freddie, and he can only hope that it had helped Roger as well.

“The thing about John,” Freddie had told him conversationally as they made their way down the street, both donning large black sunglasses half as disguises and half to block out the morning light, “is he’s never content with just being content. Do you know what I mean?”

Roger scoffed out a laugh. “No.”

“I mean that he’ll want things and he’ll have it in his power to get them, but he won’t do it. He’ll choose time and time again not to make himself happy.”

“Does he think he doesn’t deserve it?”

Freddie shrugged. “It’s just the way he is. I think he doesn’t want to inconvenience other people with his feelings.”

“That’s ridiculous, though. He knows I feel the same way.”

Freddie shrugged again. “Whether that’s true or not almost doesn’t matter, though. He’ll do what he does simply because he thinks it’ll make your life easier.” He pursed his lips for a long moment, his mind wandering back in time to the gangly boy who hovered in the corners of his school, his voice always scratchy and his eyes a little too sad for his age.

“I wouldn’t say any of this made things easier,” Roger offered.

“I suppose it didn’t,” Freddie snorted, and Roger smiled wryly. “It’s just what he does, though. He always wants to make life easier for people. He’ll happily give you everything without even hesitating, and once he loves you he’ll never leave.” He paused. “Don’t abuse that trust.”

Roger blinked at him, just a flicker of shadow behind his glasses. “I won’t.”

“I know you won’t. This was a misunderstanding and I get that. Still, though…don’t.”

Roger just shook his head, smiling fondly. “I suppose I owe you the shovel talk on Brian then, don’t I?”

“Let me guess: ruin his honor and you’ll ruin my face?”

“Something like that,” Roger laughed, looking up at the sky as they kept walking. “Just be careful with him, yeah? Brian’s kind of got shitty taste in men.”

“Thanks,” Freddie said dryly.

“I should be thanking you, if anything. You presented yourself as such a douchebag that you managed to lure him in, only to turn out to have the heart of gold that he craves. You better, at least,” he added, giving Freddie a hard stare over the rims of his sunglasses.

Freddie laughed hesitantly. “He really has that poor taste?”

“Oh yeah,” Roger said flatly. “He met his last boyfriend at a pool hall. I’m pretty sure the guy didn’t even bother to learn his middle name. The guy before that only lasted two months. He kept telling Brian he was too pretty for his degree, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was when he kept calling me Robert.”

“I’ll make a note to remember your name,” Freddie said.

“I appreciate it,” Roger said. “Let’s see, who else? The burly bartender who Brian swore was actually a sweetheart. Plot twist: he wasn’t.” He kicks a pebble against the concrete. “Guy before _that_ was his first boyfriend, and that didn’t go well either. Obviously. The point is, when he’s with someone he tries to accommodate them. He expects other people to want to do the same. He thinks any asshole he dates will suddenly not be a dick just because they’re in a relationship together.”

“Will he want me to change?”

“Not _change._ Not you. He likes you the way you are, especially now that he knows all the stuff from the past was just an act. Don’t prove him wrong, though.” He cleared his throat. “Else you’ll have me to deal with.”

“Are you threatening me?” Freddie asked, amused.

“Oh yeah.”

“Alright, Roger.”

“I’ll stab you.”

“Okay.”

“Not fatally. It’ll be pretty painful, though.”

“Alright. I look forward to it.”

“You’re not supposed to look forward to it.”

“I’m quaking, then.”

“Good.”

“Petrified.”

“That’s what I like to hear.”

And then they’d come back to the hotel, and Freddie’s heart had twisted at the horrible bruise on Brian’s face, and then he’d carefully covered up said bruise carefully and lovingly.

And then his day had only gone downhill from there.

It’s not because he keeps kissing Brian. Those are the _highlights._ What’s driving him up the bloody wall is the fact that all they’re doing is kissing. They seriously can’t get a single moment to themselves.

It’s not for lack of wanting to. He can feel Brian’s eyes lingering on him all day. He can see the sheer desire written all over his face, can tell by the way his fingers are twitching that he’s fighting off the urge to do _something._ What exactly it is, Freddie will never know. He’ll never know because they apparently can’t catch a fucking break.

He thought he’d be able to get him alone after the banquet. It was just his luck that a few fans wanted to talk—and really, Freddie loves his fans and cherishes any and all chances to interact with them. He does.

He has to remind himself of that fact when he looks up ten minutes later only to find that Brian, who’d been lingering behind him last he’d checked, is nowhere in sight.

Cursing under his breath, he heads to the lifts, pressing the button six times in a row.

“They don’t come faster if you push it like that, you know,” a man comments as he steps out.

Freddie just smiles at him tightly, all but lunging into the lift and pressing the button for Brian’s floor. The doors slide shut infuriatingly slowly before the lift lurches into motion with an all-too-cheery beep.

Freddie huffs, leaning backward against the rail. It takes only three floors before his restlessness gets the better of him, and he pulls out his phone and opens twitter just for something to take his mind off it.

**courtney gorgeous** @courtneyxgorgeous · Jun 20 2020

Weird shit going on #VidCon2020

**David M** @sugarbabeyswag089 · Jun 20 2020

So are we going to talk about the fact that apparently @JohnDeacon and @RogerTaylor started a brawl at a club last night or #VidCon2020

**follow babyxmay soundcloud** @allixandrews1996 · Jun 20 2020

GUYS?? #MaycuryIsReal #VidCon2020

Below are two photos. One shows a screenshot of John’s tiktok of Freddie and Brian getting ready for their day out, Freddie reaching forward to help Brian with his lipstick. The second one, blurred and distorted, shows two figures in the same outfits seemingly kissing in the shadows of the conservatory balcony.

Freddie frowns at it.

Photos like that aren’t damning. Hell, the second one is so blurry that the figures are practically unrecognizable. Their clothes are fairly nondescript; Brian’s all-black getup is just a dark smudge, and Freddie’s beanie and white t-shirt are hardly distinct. There’s no evidence that it’s them. It’s probably not even enough of a story for the tabloids to try to pick it up.

That doesn’t stop him from worrying about it anyway.

He wonders if Brian knows. He wonders if he even cares—if either of them should bother to care. This is bound to get out eventually, no matter how they play their odds.

He’s distracted by the elevator dinging cheerfully as the doors slide open, which. Right. Priorities.

He hurries down the hall before stopping in front of Brian’s door, knocking quickly and then leaning back and rocking on the balls of his feet restlessly. He’s raising his fist to knock again when the door swings open.

“I was going to wait for you,” Brian says as he opens it, brushing his fingers quickly through his curls. He’s done something to them, and Freddie isn’t sure what but they look somehow glossier. He’s put on a new shirt, too—a white button-down with tiny stripes that accentuate the length of his waist, the buttons barely done up enough to be considered decent. Several delicate silver necklaces rest against the fair skin between his collar bones.

Freddie feels his own mouth go slack.

“You seemed busy talking to fans,” Brian continues, “and I needed time to get ready anyway, so I—”

“You look great.”

“I’m not done yet.”

“No?” Freddie asks him absently, edging around him into the room. “You look perfect.”

“Freddie,” Brian chides, stepping back to let him in even as he says it. “There’ll probably be paps. If I’m going to be on the cover of another tabloid this week I at least want to look my best.”

“Believe me, you have nothing to worry about.”

Brian huffs, leaning into the mirror above the minibar. “At least you managed to hide the bruising. Talk about small blessings…”

“I’m serious,” Freddie says, stepping closer. When Brian doesn’t turn to look at him he tugs on the hem of his shirt to get his attention. “Stop it. You look like a supermodel. I don’t know why you’re worrying over nothing.”

Brian rolls his eyes, turning back to the mirror. “Liar.”

“I’m not making it up,” Freddie says softly. He tugs on Brian’s wrist this time, and the look he gets in return is exasperated. “I’m a beauty vlogger, you know. I know about these things.”

“Oh?” Brian asks, raising his eyebrows sarcastically. There’s a tiny smile tugging at his mouth.

“And,” Freddie continues, “I’ve been trying to get you alone since this morning. If you want to spend that time trying to look better than you do right now—which is a ridiculously high bar, by the way—then I’ll help.”

Brian huffs out a tiny laugh, bracketing Freddie’s hips in his hands. “And if I don’t?”

“Well, there are a _lot_ of other things we could be doing right now that are way more fun,” Freddie says primly.

Brian’s eyes flick down to his mouth. “Like?”

Freddie stifles his smile as he leans up to kiss him.

He has to stand on tiptoe to reach, practically. That doesn’t matter to him, not when Brian’s fingers tighten around his hips as he sighs into the kiss, hauling Freddie closer into his space. The glasses sitting on top of the minibar clink together softly as they jostle the counter, but Brian doesn’t pay them any mind. He’s much too busy grabbing Freddie’s ass and turning the two of them carefully around.

Freddie practically stumbles over his own feet as they go, then trips over Brian’s foot for good measure. He ends up tumbling into the bar, Brian’s grip on him the only thing that keeps him from falling over entirely. He pulls away to let out a laugh as one of the tiny bottles of vodka slips off the shelf and goes bouncing across the floor.

He shouldn’t be laughing at a time like this, but he can hardly help it—he can’t tamp down the bright ball of happiness in the center of his chest, and he doesn’t want to. He can’t stop smiling as Brian relocates his mouth to Freddie’s jaw without missing a beat, tracing a path of gentle kisses down his neck, his taller frame practically curled into Freddie’s just to reach. His hair is tickling Freddie’s jaw, and that’s something to smile about, too.

“I missed you today,” Brian says softly, his voice rough and his breath tickling the skin of Freddie’s neck.

Freddie sighs. He tugs at Brian’s hair, craning to press a kiss to the side of his head. “I was there the whole time,” he breathes.

“It wasn’t close enough,” Brian replies, and Freddie can hear the smile in his voice.

He’s so happy he’s giddy. He’s never been this happy with someone else—not like _this_ , in moments that he always thought were meant to be serious. Brian nips gently at his pulse point and sighs against the same spot when Freddie tugs at his hair a moment later, and arousal is building all at once in Freddie’s stomach. His fingers are shaking and his world is being shifted on its axis and he can’t stop smiling.

Brian’s hands are just slipping beneath the hem of his shirt, tracing along the patch of skin above his waistband, when Freddie’s phone starts vibrating.

Freddie gropes for it blindly, swiping to accept the call without even looking at the screen. He presses it to his ear, then tilts his head toward it to give Brian better access.

“Yeah?” he grunts into the receiver, barely managing to stifle another laugh.

Brian makes a questioning noise against the spot below his other ear, but he doesn’t stop what he’s doing. If anything he pulls Freddie even closer.

 _“Did you get my text?”_ John says flatly on the other line.

“Ah—no,” Freddie replies.

_“Dammit, Freddie. I need help. What am I supposed to wear tonight? The shirt with the stars or the one with the little embroidered trees?”_

“They’re both the same,” Freddie says distractedly.

_“How?”_

“They’re, uh,” Freddie starts. Brian’s fingers are slipping just below his waistband, rubbing tiny circles into the dimples at the base of his back, and it’s distracting in the best way. “I don’t know. They’re both black.”

 _“They’re both black,”_ John says flatly.

“Yeah,” Freddie says.

An unimpressed silence greets him.

Brian, apparently tired of being ignored, rolls his hips against Freddie’s own. It’s a gentle movement, more of an unvoiced question than anything; Freddie only barely manages to stifle a gasp as he arches up into it, and Brian lets out a little huffing noise against his ear when he does.

 _“Freddie,”_ John says, _“you wouldn’t happen to be with Brian right now, would you?”_

Freddie _does_ laugh at that, and he feels Brian smile against his jaw. “You’re the one who called.”

 _“You’re fucking sick,”_ John says loudly, the speaker crackling at the volume. _“What the fuck is wrong with you?”_

“You’re one to talk!” Freddie says, just as loudly. Brian’s shoulders shake with silenced laughter, his forehead resting against Freddie’s shoulder. “Half the shit I’ve had to put up with this trip—things that I’ll never be able to unhear, John—I’ll never be able to unsee the—”

 _“Come downstairs! Now!”_ John all but yells.

Freddie huffs, resisting the urge to stamp his foot like a two-year-old. “No,” he whines. “Give us five, maybe ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes?” Brian huffs against his jaw.

 _“Now, Freddie! We’re not going to stand in line because of you two!”_ A second later the line goes dead.

Freddie groans, tilting his head back to rest against the mirror. He brushes his hand through Brian’s hair again, his elbow hitting the bar and knocking a few more tiny plastic bottles to the floor. “Darling,” he starts.

“Yeah,” Brian replies immediately. He pulls back just enough to rest their foreheads together, and Freddie grins at the sight of his flushed cheeks and bruised lips. “We’ve got horrible luck, don’t we?”

“We could call them to cancel,” Freddie offers.

Brian shakes his head with a wry smile. “We’ll have time later.”

They will. They’ll have all night at least, and the knowledge of that settles in Freddie’s chest with a weight he wasn’t expecting.

Why is it a heavy thought?

They lean together for a moment longer, breathing each other’s air as they catch their breath. Freddie finds himself falling into the pattern of Brian’s breathing, and calm settles over him like rain. By the time Brian squeezes his hip one last time before leaning back he feels marginally more in control.

They leave the hotel room side-by-side, taking the lift down to the lobby together. Roger and John are already there, John leaning against the stainless steel wall beside the revolving doors and Roger practically draped against the wall beside him, resting with his forearm pressed to the wall above his head so he can lean into John’s space.

“They’re hardly subtle, are they?” Brian asks quietly, one eyebrow quirked.

Freddie chooses not to point out the fact that he and Brian are hardly subtle, either.

“I’m glad you two are getting along,” Roger calls in greeting, “but if we have to wait for a table for two hours because of you…”

“Oh, they won’t make us wait, darling,” Freddie says quickly. “Why would they? We’re practically celebrities.”

“Practically?” John asks. “I think you’re a bit more than a _practical_ celebrity once you’ve made it onto the cover of the rags.”

Brian groans. “It was one time.”

“One time for you,” Roger points out. “Freddie made it once as well.”

“Oh, that hardly counts,” Freddie says dismissively.

John snorts. “You were on the cover of a tabloid?”

“It was the Daily Mail snapchat story,” Freddie admits. “Not quite the same.”

Brian turns to look at him, already laughing. “How did I not know about that?”

“Because I never talk about it,” Freddie groans, the four of them stepping out into the LA heat in unison, “because I want the world to forget.”

“I can’t believe I’ve been living with a celebrity this whole time and I didn’t even know,” John deadpans. “And to think, you made it big and didn’t even tell me—”

“Please,” Freddie scoffs. “They use your vines as reaction gifs all the time.”

“That doesn’t count and you know it,” John replies.

“The real question is how you two _didn’t_ know about this,” Roger says. “It was a big deal when it happened.”

“What did he do?” John asks Roger flatly.

“I think Freddie’s more equipped to tell the story.”

“I’m not telling it,” Freddie replies firmly, crossing his arms.

John laughs. “Roger?” he prompts.

Roger squints into the distance. “Uh,” he says, “it was a while ago, but I think it was something to do with making a list of all the beauty vloggers whose products are scams and then posting it to twitter—”

Freddie groans, stopping dead in his tracks. Brian walks straight into his back and then stumbles trying to right the two of them before stepping away sheepishly.

“I just wanted the people to know the truth,” Freddie says into his hands. “Instead I got cease and desist letters from half my co-panelists at this bloody convention—”

“You what?” John snorts.

“Those palettes cost about thirty pounds each and they don’t even work. They look different in the pictures, and when they arrive they come all cracked and battered. I had enough of my fans complain about other people’s products—”

“Oh my god,” Brian says faintly.

“Is this finally making you realize how vile I am?”

“It’s really, _really_ doing the opposite.”

Freddie snorts. They reach the restaurant, a tiny little place just across the street, and Freddie holds the door open for all of them. When Brian passes him his fingers touch Freddie’s waist briefly before trailing across his stomach, and Freddie stifles a shiver before following him.

Inside it’s busy but not too crowded, the masses not having lined up quite yet, and Freddie can only be grateful that they won’t have to wait in a heaving sea of conventiongoers. Already heads are turning, and he shifts uncomfortably as he feels eyes on him. The hostess directs them to a private booth in one corner, the lighting just low enough that Freddie doesn’t think they’ll be recognized. Maybe that was the whole point.

“For fuck’s sake,” their waiter says when he reaches their table.

Roger chokes on his water.

“Hello, Crystal,” Freddie says pleasantly. “You work here too?”

“At Wok On Fire?” Crystal asks flatly.

“We should have known just from the name,” John murmurs.

“I didn’t expect to see you here, either,” Crystal continues, handing out menus. “I was told I had four VIP guests in the corner. I was expecting someone interesting.”

“Who’s more interesting than us?” Roger asks petulantly.

“I don’t know. The Kardashians, maybe.”

“The Kardashians eat at Wok On Fire?”

“They might,” Crystal replies. “I don’t know. At least it would shake up my night. Watching them is like watching zoo animals.”

“I’m much more interesting than Kierra Jenner,” Roger argues.

John snorts. “I think you just managed to say the _only_ name starting with a K that they haven’t used.”

“Oh, like you can even name any of them,” Roger scoffs.

“Kim.”

“Everybody knows _Kim._ ”

“Do you think she married Kanye just because his name begins with a K?” Brian muses. “How many other male names starting with K are there?”

“Kurt,” Freddie says immediately.

“Kevin,” John supplies.

“Karl,” Freddie continues. “Kyle, Kris,”

“They’ve already got a Kris,” Roger says.

“Whatever,” Crystal says quickly, rolling his eyes. “I’m glad to see you’ve all made up, in any event. It truly warms my heart. Can I get you guys any drinks?”

John and Roger both turn an interesting shade of green. “Do you have any mocktails?” John asks faintly.

Crystal snorts. “Mocktails for the lightweights. You two?”

“Beer,” Brian says. “Whatever’s cheapest. Freddie?”

“Two of those,” Freddie says.

Crystal nods. “Uni Special, got it. I’ll be back.” He turns, heading toward the bar.

Brian snorts, shaking his head softly. “Does anyone know how many jobs he actually works?” he asks.

“The first day I met him he suggested it was in the range of two dozen,” Roger says.

John’s eyes widen. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah. There’s some sort of tax fraud situation going on. I don’t quite understand it, in all honesty. I think they’re trying to deport him.”

“He must have an excellent resume,” John hums. “I can’t lie. I’ll miss him when we’re gone.”

“At least we’ve got a decent amount of time left,” Roger muses. “We’re down to our last week in Los Angeles. Can you believe that?”

“Hardly,” Brian hums. “Do you guys have any plans?”

Freddie purses his lips. He meets John’s eyes across the table and sees his own sadness reflected in the corners of John’s eyes. He grimaces at Freddie, leaning almost imperceptibly closer to Roger.

“You’ll have to have the real fun without us,” Freddie says quietly. “We’re leaving town tomorrow.”

“So soon?” Brian murmurs, and when Freddie turns to look at him his eyebrows are furrowed.

“We had to get an earlier flight than most,” John says. “I’ve got to start getting ready for school, and Freddie has work to take care of.”

“We won’t see each other for some time, then,” Roger replies quietly. “We had to book our tickets a ways out. It was the cheapest way to get home.”

“I won’t see you for about a week,” Freddie says aloud, mostly to himself.

“No,” Brian murmurs. “No, I don’t suppose you will.”

The thought is harder to grip than he expected. He knew this would inevitably happen once the con ended. It’s only now that he’s confronting the information head on that he’s struggling to compute it. For the last week Brian has been everywhere he looked. They went from enemies to friends to whatever they are now—something gentle and green and just barely starting to bloom—in that space of time, likely solely because of their proximity to one another.

Can that last once they’re apart again? Can this continue when they’re separated, or are they bound to have the same misunderstandings that plagued them before? It’s a sobering thought.

Brian turns his hand over beneath Freddie’s own, lacing their fingers together and giving Freddie’s a reassuring squeeze.

“Well,” Roger says, “between you and me, I think distance makes the heart grow fonder. Perhaps this will be good for all of us.”

John snorts. “Oh, you think?”

“You and I had never met before coming to Los Angeles,” Roger continues. “Thirty seconds into officially meeting you were already trying to get me into bed.”

“Trying?” John asks, raising his eyebrows.

“Do you not remember how—”

“I wasn’t _trying_ anything. From what I remember I was _succeeding_ fairly well.”

“Look,” Roger replies, waving his hand broadly, “all I’m saying is the raw lust encouraged by longing from a fair distance—”

Brian groans, burying his face in his hands. “Please don’t talk about your raw lust,” he says, his voice muffled.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Roger crows, loudly enough that a few heads turn. “Excuse the fuck out of me, Mr. Deflowering-The-Lift-With-My-Archnemesis-On-Day-Two.”

“It was technically day one, and we were having a row,” Freddie announces. “You know how those things sometimes tend to work out.”

Brian raises his head from his hands, squinting. “Do you solve every row by just…?”

“That’s a lie and you know it,” John says, straight-faced. “If you ever tried to lay one on me while we were arguing I’d have slapped you in the balls.”

“Promises, promises,” Freddie sasses back.

“Boys, please,” Crystal says loudly, arriving beside their table as if appearing from thin air. “Behave yourselves.”

“I swear we’re on our best behavior,” Roger tells him.

Crystal snorts. “I saw how you left the last place. That’s a low bar.”

“That’s what I’m saying. This is as good as it gets. Besides,” he adds, “I thought you loved us for our drunken shenanigans.”

“I love your drunken shenanigans when I’m not the one responsible for cleaning up after them,” Crystal replies, rolling his eyes as he passes a glass first to John and then to Roger. “Here. Virgin pina coladas. May they replenish even a thimble of chastity into your souls.”

John laughs into his drink.

“Chris, we were just discussing our departure dates,” Brian says. “Do you know when you’ll be leaving California?”

“Why?” Crystal asks flatly. “Do you miss me already?”

“Would you blame us?” Roger pipes up.

“Cheers,” Brian murmurs as Crystal puts the beers down on the table. “I was just curious, really. Thought you might want to reconnect in London.”

Crystal hums. “I don’t exactly have a set departure date. I’m waiting to get deported.”

John frowns, looking up. “You _want_ to get deported?”

“Sure. It’s a free flight home, isn’t it?”

“Doesn’t it go on your record or something?” Brian asks, squinting.

“I don’t know.” Crystal shrugs. “I don’t really care, honestly. Either way they’re taking forever. My visa expired weeks ago.”

“So it’s like you’re on an extended holiday?” John muses.

“I guess.”

“Maybe we should miss our flights too, then.”

“John, no,” Brian says tiredly.

Roger purses his lips. “Might as well give them a reason to put us on the tabloids…”

“ _No.”_

The night passes in a blur, and between the good food and better company Freddie never wants it to end. Nonetheless, before he knows it they’re fighting over the check, crossing the street and walking back through the lobby together.

As soon as the lift stops on John’s floor John and Roger tumble out, Roger laughing as John whispers something into his ear. Freddie pauses in the doorway, turning to look at Brian only to find that Brian is already studying him in return.

“Come upstairs with me,” Brian says lowly, but it comes out like a question. “Let’s have a drink or something.”

Freddie swallows, his mouth already dry. He doesn’t answer, just presses the button to close the doors before stepping into Brian’s space.

Brian watches him, his gaze heavy, his hands coming up hesitantly to touch Freddie’s waist. That won’t do—the hesitance won’t do, not after so much waiting. Freddie rests his hands over Brian’s own, urging him forward, and that’s all the encouragement Brian needs to hold him for real, his thumbs tracing Freddie’s hip bones through his jeans.

The ding of the lift startles both of them. Freddie had almost forgotten where they were. As soon as the doors slide open he tangles his fingers with Brian’s and tugs him down the hall.

“Do you think we’re developing a lift fetish?” Brian asks him, a little breathlessly.

Freddie snorts out a laugh. “Why? Do you?”

“I think everyone else does.”

They come to a stop in front of Brian’s door, and Freddie takes the opportunity to lean up and press a kiss to the skin in front of his ear. “They’re just jealous,” he whispers.

He revels in the way Brian fumbles with the key card, nearly dropping it as he goes to jam it into the slot. He swears a little under his breath when it doesn’t work the first time, and when he finally does get it unlocked he all but throws the door open, hurrying to turn on the lights.

Freddie wanders in after him, looking around his room. It’s the first time he’s been here, and he thought for some reason that it would lend him some look into Brian’s soul. He should have known better; the room is the exact same as his but with all the furniture in the opposite positions. The only difference is the tidiness.

“What would you like?” Brian asks from across the room. He’s hurriedly straightening the already-pristine sheets on the bed, tugging the bedspread taught and brushing nonexistent dust off the throws. “I’ve got tea, coffee, wine, some—you know, it’s the same as what all the rooms have.”

Freddie drifts over to the minibar, studying it as nonchalantly as he can manage. “If I opened the champagne would you have some?”

“I would, yeah. You don’t have to, though,” Brian says.

Freddie raises his eyebrows, already tearing off the foil and untwisting the wire keeping the cork attached. Brian doesn’t say anything through the whole process, watching as Freddie untwists the cork with the hem of his shirt, jumping slightly at the pop.

“Thanks,” Brian breathes as Freddie doles it into two coffee mugs and hands one over. He takes a slow sip of it, his eyelashes fluttering as he swallows.

“Of course,” Freddie replies easily, studying him. “You alright?”

“Yeah, perfect.” He swallows, fiddling with his mug. “I’m sorry.”

“Am I making you nervous?”

His cheeks darken a shade. “Not you, no. I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

“What’s wrong?” Freddie asks him softly. “Talk to me.”

Brian frowns at him, taking a slow sip of champagne. “We didn’t come up here to _talk_ ,” he tries.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Freddie chides gently. “You offered me a drink and nothing more.”

“I don’t want to lead you on.”

“You’re not leading me on,” Freddie replies, fighting to keep his tone soft. “I _like_ you, Brian. I want to spend time with you and get to know you better. If there’s something bothering you I want to hear about it.”

Brian’s lips quirk up at that. He studies his mug for a long moment before snorting to himself. “It’s just that, I suppose. Who would have expected this, of all things?”

“What?” Freddie asks, bemused.

“You and me.” He gestures between them. “This, happening in the span of a week. I was so wrong about you.”

“It was mutual.”

Brian shakes his head, looking up finally to send Freddie a warm smile. “I’m sorry I was so quick to form a conclusion about you. I don’t usually make snap judgements about people like that. I’m beyond happy that I got a second chance to get to know you. To think that I could have missed that chance entirely—”

“Oh, it hardly matters, does it?” Freddie cuts in quickly. “You have me now. I’m sorry too, for what it’s worth.”

Brian is silent at that, and that won’t do.

“Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours,” Freddie says quietly.

Brian’s eyes flick up to his, their gaze meeting over the rim of his mug. He pulls it away slowly as if afraid to lose his shield, his shoulders rising gently as he shrugs.

“Come on, curly,” Freddie chides. “Don’t get scared on me now.”

Brian huffs out a laugh. “I’m not scared of you.”

“No? Could’ve fooled me.”

“How could I possibly be?” Brian says, his cheeks heating. “This entire convention is terrifying. You’re practically the calm in the storm.”

Freddie can’t help but preen a little at that. “You charmer,” he says.

“No, it’s not you,” Brian continues. He traces a long finger around the rim of his mug, over and over and over. The movement is practically hypnotizing, and Freddie can’t quite tear his gaze away. “It’s—you know. It’s everything else.”

“Everything else,” Freddie echoes.

“I know it’s been on your mind, too. It’s not you I’m afraid of, it’s—I don’t know, the fear of messing this all up, I suppose.”

Freddie smiles to himself. “We can hardly mess it up more than we already have.”

“I just can’t stop thinking about it,” Brian continues. “This—Los Angeles, the convention, everything—it’s all felt surreal. What if we’re just a part of the fabric of that? What if when we go home everything will be different?”

“I suppose we won’t know until we’re back,” Freddie says softly.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“What?”

“Going back,” Brian says honestly. “I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to go back to the way things were.”

Freddie shakes his head, looking up finally to meet Brian’s eyes. “Oh, what does it matter?” he says. “What’s the use of—of fearing every little thing? It won’t work out if we don’t let it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that we should use what time we have left. All we can do is take things one moment at a time and savor every second.”

“Because every second might be the last?” Brian asks skeptically.

Freddie laughs outright at that, and he’s cheered when it brings a small smile to Brian’s lips. “No,” he says. “No, not because it might be the last. Because every second is worth savoring when it’s a second spent with you. It’s just us. There’s nothing to be afraid of when it’s just us.”

Brian blinks slowly at that, studying him with something indecipherable on his face. Freddie can only hope that he understands what Freddie himself has been thinking for so long; that when they take all of it away—the fans, the press, their personas and the entire feud that hovers between them—it all becomes unerringly simple.

“So that’s it?” Brian asks. “You’re not afraid for the coming week?”

“Of course I am,” Freddie replies. “I’ll miss you. How about that?”

Brian blinks again, a smile tugging at his mouth. “I’ll miss you too. And you’re right. I don’t want to waste time.”

“No?” Freddie asks softly.

Brian shakes his head, his eyes drifting down to Freddie’s mouth. “No,” he repeats.

It’s not hard to lean forward and kiss him, then.

He sighs against Freddie’s cheek blissfully. His lips are slightly cold, his mouth champagne-sweet and soft beneath Freddie’s own. It’s practically chaste; it’s playful as anything, and that more than anything has Freddie reeling. They’ve changed; the two of them have changed, but only for the better.

Brian drags him closer, and neither of them do any more thinking for a while.

Dawn comes, golden and lazy.

It’s the sunlight that wakes him and the sight beside him that makes him stay awake: Brian, still dozing peacefully with his face smushed into the pillow a breath away from Freddie’s own, his fingers curled loosely into the sheets. He reaches out to brush a few errant curls off his forehead and Brian shifts, pressing his face into Freddie’s touch.

“Wake up, sleepy head,” Freddie whispers.

Brian groans, burrowing further into the blankets without opening his eyes. “’S too early.”

“Don’t you want to give me a proper goodbye?”

“I just wanna be close to you,” Brian rumbles, his voice rough with sleep, and scoots closer to throw an arm over Freddie’s waist.

Freddie grins to himself and lets him, pressing his face against the top of Brian’s head and holding him closer.

He can tell by the rhythm of his breathing that Brian doesn’t fall asleep. He’s dozing maybe, or maybe he’s just resting his eyes and savoring the warmth of the body against his own in the same way that Freddie is.

Either way he doesn’t shift for what feels like hours, and Freddie can only bask in it. He holds him close and rubs the pad of his thumb over his soft skin, not minding the stray curls that are tickling his nose with every breath he takes.

The light outside has shifted from yellow to white by the time Brian shifts again. He moves backward just enough to press a kiss to Freddie’s collar bone, and then he’s scooting upward to blink at him tiredly.

“What time’s your flight?” he asks, his tone resigned.

“One.” Freddie smiles at him sadly. “It’s not goodbye,” he adds.

“I know. It just feels pointless to be here now that all the conventiongoers are leaving. Now that you’re leaving,” he adds.

“Don’t let Roger hear you say that.”

“As if he doesn’t feel the same way?” Brian asks with a smile that quickly fades as he rolls over and looks at the clock. “If your flight is at one then you better start packing.”

“Now?”

“Arrive three hours early for international flights. That’s the rule.”

“Rules are made to be broken.”

Brian _does_ smile at that, shaking his head. “I’m impressed you even made it here at all.”

Freddie hums, leaning over to kiss him sweetly, Brian’s mouth soft beneath his own, and when he pulls back the other man’s eyes are still closed. “Do you want to come down and keep me company?” he asks softly.

Brian’s eyes flutter open. He nods.

Freddie ends up pulling on his own clothes from the night before. He strongly considers stealing something of Brian’s, and then rethinks it. No doubt someone on twitter will be able to recognize it for what it is in a second, and he doesn’t quite want to risk that.

He makes peace with the thought by tangling his fingers into Brian’s own and tugging him down the hall, into the elevator and finally to the door of Freddie’s own room. John’s door is open across the hall, the entire floor strewn with clothes, towels and the odd accessory.

“Morning,” John calls to them as Freddie unlocks his own door.

“Going well in there?” Freddie calls back.

“Sure.”

“Where’s Roger?” Brian asks him. “I thought he’d be here with you.”

“What, doing the walk of shame?”

Freddie raises an eyebrow, turning to look at him. “Excuse you. Do I look shameful to you?”

John rolls his eyes. “For your information he’s in a disciplinary meeting right now.”

“Disciplinary meeting?” Brian asks. “The con’s practically over. What do they have to discipline him about?”

“He ‘aggrieved another panelist through aggressive language’,” John says conversationally, folding a shirt as he speaks.

Freddie snorts to himself, finally getting his own door open, and turns on the lights only to be met with the mess that is his room. Great.

“’Aggrieved’?” Brian asks. “Aggrieved who?”

“Pewdiepie. Apparently he took offense when Roger wrote a tweet calling him a…the exact term is escaping me. Bigoted piece of dick flap? Something like that.” He shrugs, tucking the shirt neatly into his bag. “Anyway, they’re making him go sing kumbaya in a conference room or something.”

“Kind of rude, isn’t it?” Freddie asks, scooping an armful of clothes off the floor and dumping them unceremoniously into his bag. “If he misses his chance to say goodbye to you, especially. They shouldn’t be able to do that.”

“They’re the ones who sign his paycheck, so it’s not like there’s much to be done.”

Freddie looks up midway through dumping an armful of hair products into his suitcase, meeting John’s eyes across the hallway and giving him a pointed look.

“Okay,” John says after a beat, “in full honesty, if I don’t see him before I leave I’m gonna tweet mean things about the YouTube board of directors.”

“Then they’ll just try to discipline _you_ ,” Brian points out.

“Vine made me. They can fuck right off.”

Freddie snorts. He spends a long moment squishing all of his things further into the suitcase before forcing it shut, leaning all of his weight on it and wrestling with the zipper for a long moment. When it finally closes he feels like he’s just been through three rounds of boxing, and he lets out a sigh of relief as he checks that the zippers are secure.

“How much longer are you going to be, John?” he calls.

John shrugs. “I don’t know. I was going to wait up here for him for a few more minutes. I’ve got a few more things to pack, anyway.”

“Are you stealing the robes?”

“And the towels.”

Freddie nods sagely even as Brian lets out a laugh. “I can turn in your key.”

“Cheers,” John says. “I don’t think I’ll need it. I’ll be down in a minute to call us a lyft.”

“We’ll see you down there, John,” Brian says.

John nods. “Yeah, likewise.”

Freddie checks his room over one last time before he and Brian start down the hallway. Neither of them say anything; Freddie can’t think of what to say, truthfully. Goodbyes have never been his specialty.

Brian seems to have no such qualms. As soon as the elevator doors are shut he pulls him closer, his touch gentle and his lips just as soft. It’s practically chaste; nothing more than what they’ve already done, and certainly nothing that should send his head spinning the way it does. Nonetheless it feels like a promise, and when he steps back as the lift dings Freddie feels pleasantly foggy-headed.

“One for the road?” Freddie asks him.

Brian smiles. “I’m going to miss that.”

They walk across the lobby and Freddie breezes through check out and calling a lyft, and then before he knows it he’s standing on the front steps of the hotel with his suitcase sitting next to him and just like that the week is over.

Just like that.

He can hardly believe all that’s happened. He can’t believe that he had this opportunity, nor can he wrap his head around what came of it: not the fame and status, not the events or even the interactions with the fans, but this: two new friendships, one budding into a love so strong he can almost taste it.

He never wants to leave Los Angeles, yet at the same time he can’t wait to return to London. He can’t wait to be back in his own flat, with Brian in his space this time; he can’t wait to go to Roger and Brian’s place and become a part of it. He feels all at once trapped in time, caught between the wonders of the last week and the joy that two weeks’ time could bring, and he can hardly breathe around it.

“Well,” Brian says, tucking his hands into his pockets.

“Well,” Freddie echoes, fidgeting with the handle of his suitcase, and Brian laughs and looks down at his shoes.

Freddie takes him in for a long moment, drinking in the sight of him. He’s going to miss him, even if it’s just for a few days. It’s a luxury to have him close, and he knows that now.

“I’ll see you in London,” Brian says finally, his hands jammed into his pockets like he’s afraid that if he doesn’t stop himself he’ll try to reach out and touch.

“Yeah,” Freddie says softly. “Take care, Bri.”

“You too.”

He turns before he can do something moronic like try to kiss him right there in the middle of the lobby. He drags his suitcase through the sliding doors instead, nodding at the bellhops and paparazzi crowded under the awning as he comes to a stop at the curb.

John beats their lyft driver there, appearing at Freddie’s side after a few more minutes.

“We’re waiting for Raquel,” Freddie tells him. “Blue Prius.”

“Great,” John says quickly.

“Her license plate starts with XAI,” Freddie tells him, squinting at his phone. “I’m going to Venmo you, by the way. You owe me money.

“Yeah,” John mutters distractedly, looking behind Freddie’s shoulder.

“You’re not gonna argue with that?”

“Um,” John says intelligently, still scanning the front of the hotel.

Freddie frowns at him. “Are you okay? Did you forget something?”

“I forgot one thing, actually.”

“You still have time to go check if you—"

“John!”

Freddie turns to see Roger jogging through the doors and heading straight toward them.

John lets go of his suitcase, ignoring it as it topples over. He takes two steps toward Roger, catching him with a hand at the small of his back and saying something to him too softly for Freddie to hear. Roger smiles, his eyes slightly wet, his hands coming up to frame John’s cheeks, and between one second and the next John is dipping him in the middle of the sidewalk, kissing him hard even as Roger clings to his shoulders. All around them, cameras flash.

Freddie smiles. It’s sweet, even if it is completely idiotic. They’ll never hear the end of this.

And then he winces slightly as he looks away. He can _see_ tongue.

“Are you Freddie?” a woman calls from a car window.

Freddie winces again. “Yeah. Hi. We’re waiting for my friend.”

“Where are they?”

Freddie gestures at his roommate, still caught in a rather cinematic kiss.

“Oh. Good for him. Let me load your bags up.”

When John finally joins him in the backseat his cheeks are flushed, his lips are bruised and his eyes are a little too bright. The dopey grin on his face is enough to make Freddie roll his eyes.

“Buckle your seatbelt, Adonis,” he gripes as the car pulls into midday traffic.

“ _He’s_ the Adonis,” John says with a giddy laugh. “Ugg. I love him so much, Fred.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure everyone and their mother is now aware of that.”

“He’s so great. I’m gonna miss him.”

“Long distance boyfriend?” Raquel asks.

“They live in the same city,” Freddie says flatly. “They’re not even going to be apart for a week.”

She hums. “A week can be a long time, especially when things are just starting out.”

 _Don’t I know it,_ Freddie wants to say. He stares out the window as the hotel slides past them and out of view. Whatever he has with Brian, it’s resting on a glass foundation. It took them the entire con to finally get their acts together; what will a week apart do to counteract that?

“You love him, though,” Raquel continues.

Freddie starts, wondering briefly if the woman read his mind, but it’s John who replies. “I do,” he says softly. “I never thought I could love someone like that.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about,” she replies, switching lanes seamlessly. “If you love him and if he loves you, everything else can come later. Your whole lives can come later. What’s a week compared to that?”

“That’s very philosophical of you,” Freddie comments.

She nods. “I’m a philosophy major.” The car rolls to a stop at a red light, and she pushes a coffee can through the gap between the front seats, coins jangling against the metal as it moves. “I accept tips.”

Freddie just smiles to himself, his eyes drifting to the window as John asks her something, pushing a few bills into the slot in the can. He watches the palm trees as they pass, stretching endlessly upward into the sky, the rush of midday traffic slipping by outside. He’s going to miss LA.

Not as much as he misses London, though.

He’s ready to go home. Now that the convention is done—now that their hotel rooms are cleared out, their goodbyes said, their bags packed—he’s not missing the past week so much as he is looking forward to the future. Now that they’re on the road, he can’t wait for what comes next.

He leans back in his seat, his eyes fixed on the sky outside, and smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter brought to you by Monster by Mark Diamond. A nice boppy song for a nice boppy chapter. Enjoy! 
> 
> Guys, please credit mysticanni and IvyYara for the completion of this chapter as without their encouragement I never would've got back to it. I’ve been so so side tracked by a few different things that I’d almost forgotten about this fic entirely. This was going to be split into two chapters but it ended up working better as one long big one, so here we are! 
> 
> I can’t believe we’re almost at the end. There’s just the epilogue after this. Can you believe?! I hope you enjoyed it even after such a long break, and that all of you are in good health and doing well. Please let me know what you think! Your thoughts and comments mean the world <3


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